Photocatalytic activity of electrospun Fe-doped ZnO nanofibers: Synthesis, characterization and applications

Fe-doped ZnO ceramic nanofibers (CNFs) as specific structural features and unique properties synthesized by using electrospun technology. X-ray diffraction disclosed the wurtzite phase, and the microscopy analysis by SEM revealed the formation uniform nanofibers with 400 nm in diameter. The UV–visible diffuse reflectance spectroscopy (DRS) was used to investigation the optical properties of the pristine and the various percentages Fe doped ZnO photocrystalysts. The photo-reduction activities of photocatalyst were evaluated using methylene blue (MB) as organic contaminant irradiated with simulate solar light from xenon lamp. The photocatalytic results that 1% Fe-doped ZnO CNFs exhibits efficient visible and UV light activity and excellent photo-stability. The kinetic constant of MB degradation over 1% Fe-doped ZnO is about 2.2 times higher than that over pure ZnO. The experiment demonstrated that the photodegradation efficiency of Fe-doped ZnO was significantly higher than that of undoped ZnO.