Photocatalytic degradation of methylene blue dye by electrospun binary and ternary zinc and titanium oxide nanofibers

Synthetic dyes, dispersed in water, have harmful effects on human health and the environment. In this work, Ti and/or Zn oxide nanofibers (NFs) with engineered architecture and surface were produced via electrospinning followed by calcination. Calcination and subsequent cooling were operated at fast rates to generate porous NFs with capture centers to reduce the recombination rate of the photogenerated charges. After morphological and microstructural characterisation, the NFs were comparatively evaluated as photocatalysts for the removal of methylene blue from water under UV irradiation. The higher band gap and lower crystallinity were responsible for the lower photocatalytic activity of the ternary oxides (ZnTiO3 and Zn2TiO4) towards the degradation of the dye. The optimal loads of the highly performing binary oxides were determined. By using 0.66 mg mL-1 wurtzite ZnO for the discoloration of an aqueous solution with a dye concentration of 15 µM, a higher rate constant (7.94 × 10-2 min-1) than previously reported was obtained. The optimal load for anatase TiO2 was lower (0.33 mg mL-1). The corresponding rate constant (1.12 × 10-1 min-1) exceeds the values reported for the commonly used P25-TiO2 benchmark. The catalyst can be reused twice without any regeneration treatment, with 5.2% and 18.7% activity decrease after the second and third use, respectively.