Fabrication and characterization of hollow TiO2 fibers by microemulsion electrospinning for photocatalytic reactions

We report a versatile microemulsion electrospinning method to fabricate hollow TiO2 nanofibers. A microemulsion of titanium isopropoxide (TiP)/poly(methyl methacrylate)(PMMA) solution, hexadecyl trimethyl ammonium bromide (CTAB; surfactant), and paraffin oil was used as the precursor, with an electrospinning method. The TiO2 samples were characterized by field emission scanning electron microscopy (FE-SEM), X-ray diffraction (XRD), and Brunauer-Emmett-Teller (BET) analyses. The specific surface areas of the TiO2 fibers and hollow TiO2 fibers were 30.01 and 59.27 m2/g, respectively. The pore volumes of the TiO2 fibers and hollow TiO2 fibers were 0.10 and 0.19 cm3/g, respectively. The average pore size of the samples was 3.7 nm. These photocatalysts were evaluated based on the photodecomposition of methylene blue under ultraviolet light. The photocatalytic degradation rate followed a pseudo-first-order equation. The kinetic constants (k1) of the TiO2 fiber and hollow TiO2 fibers samples were 2.18×10−2 and 3.47×10−2, respectively.