Ding Deng, Li Zhiwei, Yu Sooyung, Yang Bingxin, Yin Yadong, Zan Ling, Myung Nosang Vincent
College of Chemistry and Environmental Engineering, Wuhan Polytechnic University, Wuhan 430023, China.
Department of Chemistry, University of California, Riverside, California 92521, USA.
Sci Total Environ. 2022 Jun 10;824:153790. doi: 10.1016/j.scitotenv.2022.153790. Epub 2022 Feb 9.
Mechanical vibrations and solar energy are ubiquitous in the environment. Hereon, we report the synergic enhancement of the oxidation by simultaneously harvesting solar and mechanical vibrations through flexible piezo and photocatalytic composite nanofiber mats. Surface enriched titanium dioxide nanoparticles incorporated in polyacrylonitrile (PAN/TiO) nanofibers were synthesized using a single pot electrospinning process with well-defined fiber diameters with widely tunable loading density. By incorporating photocatalytic TiO in flexible piezoelectric PAN nanofiber support, piezoelectric fields generated under the mechanical deformation promote the separation of the photogenerated electrons and holes to accelerate oxidation of pollutants. Our results demonstrated that the catalytic activity of PAN/TiO nanofibers in photodegradation of Rhodamine B (RhB) can be greatly enhanced by environmental vibration-induced piezoelectricity of PAN nanofibers, with a maximum enhancement factor of ~2.5. The working mechanism for the enhanced photocatalytic activity of PAN/TiO nanofibers by the mechanical vibrations were attributed to the piezoelectric effect of PAN nanofibers, which could efficiently promote the separation of the photogenerated electrons and holes in the TiO nanoparticles. We believe the approach to enhancing the catalytic activity of mat can make full use of the polymer properties and natural energy, and it also can be extended to other composite polymer/semiconductor systems.
机械振动和太阳能在环境中无处不在。在此，我们报告了通过柔性压电和光催化复合纳米纤维垫同时收集太阳能和机械振动来协同增强氧化作用。采用单锅静电纺丝工艺合成了掺入聚丙烯腈（PAN/TiO）纳米纤维中的表面富集二氧化钛纳米颗粒，其纤维直径明确，负载密度可广泛调节。通过将光催化TiO掺入柔性压电PAN纳米纤维载体中，机械变形下产生的压电场促进光生电子和空穴的分离，从而加速污染物的氧化。我们的结果表明，PAN纳米纤维的环境振动诱导压电性可大大提高PAN/TiO纳米纤维对罗丹明B（RhB）的光降解催化活性，最大增强因子约为2.5。PAN/TiO纳米纤维机械振动增强光催化活性的工作机制归因于PAN纳米纤维的压电效应，它可以有效地促进TiO纳米颗粒中光生电子和空穴的分离。我们相信，增强垫催化活性的方法可以充分利用聚合物特性和自然能量，并且还可以扩展到其他复合聚合物/半导体系统。
