One-Pot Route towards Active TiO2 Doped Hierarchically Porous Cellulose: Highly Efficient Photocatalysts for Methylene Blue Degradation
by
Xiaoxia Sun 1,2,3, Kunpeng Wang 1, Yu Shu 4, Fangdong Zou 1, Boxing Zhang 5, Guangwu Sun 6, Hiroshi Uyama 4 and Xinhou Wang 1,2,*
Xiaoxia Sun 1,2,3, Kunpeng Wang 1, Yu Shu 4, Fangdong Zou 1, Boxing Zhang 5, Guangwu Sun 6, Hiroshi Uyama 4 and Xinhou Wang 1,2,*
1
College of Textiles, Donghua University, Shanghai 201620, China
2
Key Laboratory of Textile Science & Technology of Eco-Textile, Ministry of Education, Donghua University, Shanghai 201620, China
3
Key Laboratory of Textile Science & Technology, Ministry of Education, Donghua University, Shanghai 201620, China
4
Department of Applied Chemistry, Graduate School of Engineering, Osaka University, Osaka 565-0871, Japan
5
South China Advanced Institute for Soft Matter Science and Technology, South China University of Technology, Guangzhou 510641, China
6
School of Fashion Technology, Shanghai University of Engineering Science, Shanghai 201620, China
*
Author to whom correspondence should be addressed.
Materials 2017, 10(4), 373; https://doi.org/10.3390/ma10040373
Received: 19 February 2017 / Revised: 25 March 2017 / Accepted: 28 March 2017 / Published: 31 March 2017
(This article belongs to the Special Issue Enhancing the Photocatalytic Activity of TiO2 Photocatalysts)
In this study, novel photocatalyst monolith materials were successfully fabricated by a non-solvent induced phase separation (NIPS) technique. By adding a certain amount of ethyl acetate (as non-solvent) into a cellulose/LiCl/N,N-dimethylacetamide (DMAc) solution, and successively adding titanium dioxide (TiO2) nanoparticles (NPs), cellulose/TiO2 composite monoliths with hierarchically porous structures were easily formed. The obtained composite monoliths possessed mesopores, and two kinds of macropores. Scanning Electron Microscope (SEM), Energy Dispersive Spectroscopy (EDS), Fourier Transform Infrared Spectroscopy (FT-IR), X-ray Diffraction (XRD), Brunauer-Emmett-Teller (BET), and Ultraviolet-visible Spectroscopy (UV-Vis) measurements were adopted to characterize the cellulose/TiO2 composite monolith. The cellulose/TiO2 composite monoliths showed high efficiency of photocatalytic activity in the decomposition of methylene blue dye, which was decomposed up to 99% within 60 min under UV light. Moreover, the composite monoliths could retain 90% of the photodegradation efficiency after 10 cycles. The novel NIPS technique has great potential for fabricating recyclable photocatalysts with highly efficiency.
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Keywords:
photocatalyst; non-solvent induced phase separation; monolith; cellulose; TiO2
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MDPI and ACS Style
Sun, X.; Wang, K.; Shu, Y.; Zou, F.; Zhang, B.; Sun, G.; Uyama, H.; Wang, X. One-Pot Route towards Active TiO2 Doped Hierarchically Porous Cellulose: Highly Efficient Photocatalysts for Methylene Blue Degradation. Materials 2017, 10, 373.
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