INVESTIGATING THE EFFECTS OF Zr DOPING ON THE TITANIUM DIOXIDE NANOFIBRES

Abstract

In this work, titanium dioxide (TiO2) nanofibers doped with 0.5–5 mol% zirconium ions (Zr4+) were synthesized by combining the sol-gel process and electrospinning method, and calcined at 500 °C. The morphological, structural and optical properties of pure and Zr-doped TiO2 nanofibers were investigated. According to the XRD and FTIR analyses, the addition of Zr as a dopant suppressed the transformation of anatase to rutile phase. Scanning electron microscopy showed that all fibers were smooth, fragile and randomly oriented after the calcination process. HRTEM analysis revealed that Zr4+ ions were incorporated at the substitutional sites in the anatase TiO2 crystalline lattice. The photocatalytic efficiency for degradation of methylene blue (MB) was examined for both pure and Zr-doped TiO2 samples. Nanofibers doped with 1% of Zr4+ ions have shown the highest photocatalytic activity of 98%, wich can be explained by considering lower PL intensity in the PL spectrum of this sample, indicating suppressed electron-hole recombination.