Preparation of TiO2/Ag/GO/Nylon 6,6 nanofiber membrane by a novel electrospinning method and its photodegradation efficiency under visible light

With the development of industry in recent years, the problem associated with water pollution has been aggravated, and so this causes serious damage to our environment. One of the most effective ways to improve water pollution is the use of the "titanium dioxide (TiO 2 ) photocatalytic method". For this reason, we prepared TiO 2 photocatalyst with silver (Ag) and graphene oxide (GO) by means of sol–gel method to obtain TiO 2 /Ag, TiO 2 /GO and TiO 2 /Ag/GO three photocatalysts. We then employed the visible light as light source, the methylene blue as pollutants, the UV–Visible absorption spectrometer measurement, and so compared the removal fraction of the three photocatalysts. Among them, the TiO 2 /Ag/GO photocatalyst has the highest dye removal fraction (51.41 ± 5.58%). The comparison of the TiO 2 /Ag/GO photocatalyst with the best efficiency was made with commercially available P25 photocatalyst to block the UV light. By referring to the experiments on the UV light block, the removal fraction of TiO 2 /Ag/GO photocatalyst (48.71 ± 2.02%) was higher than commercially available P25 photocatalyst (25.66 ± 3.66%). In this study, in order to efficiently recover the used photocatalyst, a photocatalyst blended solution was prepared with different weight percentages of TiO 2 /Ag/GO photocatalyst and nylon (Nylon 6,6)/formic acid solution (8wt%). To that end, the technology of electrospinning was used to produce a nanofiber membrane (TiO 2 /Ag/GO/Nylon 6,6 NFM). Based on the experimental results, the 3.0wt% TiO 2 /Ag/GO/Nylon 6,6 nanofiber membrane has the best visible light removal fraction of methylene blue (90.52 ± 0.58%).