A simple UV-ozone surface treatment to enhance photocatalytic performance of TiO2 loaded polymer nanofiber membranes

Abstract

Homogeneously dispersed titanium dioxide loaded polyacrylonitrile nanofiber membranes with increased active mass loading, Ti³⁺ surface defects and hydrophilicity were fabricated by combining electrospinning and UV-ozone surface treatment. The photocatalytic activity improved by a factor of ∼2 and the kinetics of photodegradation switched from pseudo-first order to pseudo-second order with increasing TiO₂ content with a maximum rate constant of 20.7 h⁻¹.