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

Abstract

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.