Enhancing mechanical and photocatalytic properties by surface microstructure regulation of TiO2 nanofiber membranes

In this work, TiO 2 nanofiber membrane (NFM) with a complete surface microstructure was prepared through regulating the surface microstructure of TiO 2 NFM by doping Zr. The crystal structures and morphological analyses indicated that the nanofiber membranes were consisted by disordered accumulation of Zr-doped TiO 2 nanofibers with a crack-free surface, small grain size and high aspect ratio . When the doping amount of Zr was 0.8 mL, the tensile strength of the doped membranes reached 1.27 MPa, which was 60.7% higher than that of pure TiO 2 NFM. The photocatalytic performance of Zr-doped TiO 2 NFM was evaluated by the degradation performance of Methylene orange (MO) under simulated sunlight irradiation. Compared with the undoped TiO 2 NFM, the 0.8-Zr/TiO 2 NFM presented a higher catalytic degradation efficiency (improved by 69.6%), and the photocatalytic performance maintained stable after five circulating. It was found that the doping of Zr ions effectively limited the surface crack size and grain size of TiO 2 nanofibers, thereby improving the tensile strength, and enhanced the surface area effect and carrier transfer efficiency of TiO 2 NFM. On the other hand, a narrow band-gap was obtained by doping a small amount of Zr ions, which expanded the visible light response range to improve the photocatalytic performance of TiO 2 nanofibers.