SnO₂ Nanostructures-TiO₂ Nanofibers Heterostructures: Controlled Fabrication and High Photocatalytic Properties

Abstract

Combining the versatility of the electrospinning technique and hydrothermal growth of nanostructures enabled the fabrication of hierarchical SnO(2)/TiO(2) composite nanostructures. The results revealed that not only were secondary SnO(2) nanostructures successfully grown on primary TiO(2) nanofiber substrates but also the SnO(2) nanostructures were uniformly distributed without aggregation on TiO(2) nanofibers. By adjusting fabrication parameters, the morphology as well as coverage density of secondary SnO(2) nanostructures could be further controlled, and then SnO(2)/TiO(2) heterostructures with SnO(2) nanoparticles or nanorods were facilely fabricated. The photocatalytic studies suggested that the SnO(2)/TiO(2) heterostructures showed enhanced photocatalytic efficiency of photodegradation of Rhodamine B (RB) compared with the bare TiO(2) nanofibers under UV light irradiation.

A review of TiO2 nanoparticles

“…There has been much interest in coupling different semiconductor particles with TiO 2 , with coupled samples such as TiO 2 -CdS, Bi 2 S 3 -TiO 2 , TiO 2 -WO 3 , TiO 2 -SnO 2, TiO 2 -MoO 3, and TiO 2 -Fe 2 O 3 being reported [111][112][113][114][115][116][117][118]. The coupled structure that has received the most attention is that consisting of CdS and TiO 2 colloidal particles.…”

“…The work function and electron affinity of TiO 2 are both around 4.2 eV while the work function of SnO 2 is around 4.4 eV and its electron affinity is about 0.5 eV larger than that of TiO 2 . The Fermi energy level of TiO 2 is higher than that of SnO 2 because of its smaller work function so electron transfer occurs from the conduction band of TiO 2 to the conduction band of SnO 2 and hole transfer occurs from the valence band of SnO 2 to the valence band of TiO 2 ( Figure 8) [117]. Vinodgopal et al [118] reported that the rate of photocatalytic degradation of several textile azo dyes increased by 10 times using an SnO 2 /TiO 2 composite system as a result of improved charge [53] separation.…”

Visible‐Light Photocatalytic Degradation of Methylene Blue Using SnO2/α‐Fe2O3 Hierarchical Nanoheterostructures

“…[36] On formation of the complexed band configuration of SnO 2 and a-Fe 2 O 3 , electron transfer can occur from a-Fe 2 O 3 to SnO 2 until the system attains equilibrium. [37] Under visiblelight irradiation, electrons (e À ) in the valence band (VB) of aFe 2 O 3 are excited to its conduction band (CB), with the same number of holes (h + ) left in the VB.…”

SnO2-core carbon-shell composite nanotubes with enhanced photocurrent and photocatalytic performance

“…No C 1s peak at 281 eV (Sn-C bond) was observed and the chemical environments for Sn and O were not changed, strongly suggesting that carbon does not enter the SnO 2 phase. With respect to the XPS spectra of O 1s in [12,13,27]. For pure SnO 2 NTs, there only existed two peaks which were attributed to lattice O and Sn-OH.…”