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

Abstract We report a versatile microemulsion electrospinning method to fabricate hollow TiO 2 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 TiO 2 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 TiO 2 fibers and hollow TiO 2 fibers were 30.01 and 59.27 m 2 /g, respectively. The pore volumes of the TiO 2 fibers and hollow TiO 2 fibers were 0.10 and 0.19 cm 3 /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 ( k 1 ) of the TiO 2 fiber and hollow TiO 2 fibers samples were 2.18×10 −2 and 3.47×10 −2 , respectively.