Electrospun Nanofiber Mats with Embedded Zinc Oxysulfide for Photoreduction of Nitrobenzene to Aniline under Mild Condition.

In this work, electrospun nanofiber embedded with zinc oxysulfide (Zn(O,S)) has been demonstrated as an efficient and robust photocatalyst for hydrogenation of nitrobenzene to aniline under solar light irradiation at mild conditions with methanol as the hole scavenger. The solid solution state of Zn(O,S) in electrospun nanofiber was successfully revealed by high-resolution transmission electron microscopy and X-ray diffraction analyses in which the lattice fringes and diffraction planes located in between those of ZnO and ZnS phases. Moreover, the electrochemical and optical properties of Zn(O,S) embedded in polyethylene oxide (PEO) nanofiber are found to be better than those of ZnO and ZnS indicating more efficient photocatalytic activities as well.

Material Design of Bimetallic Catalysts on Nanofibers for Highly Efficient Catalytic Reduction of 4-Nitrophenol.

In this study, CuO-TiO nanofiber catalysts were fabricated by an electrospinning process, followed by thermal annealing at various temperatures ranging from 300 to 700 °C. The phase transformation from CuO to metallic Cu was carried out through immersion treatment in NaBH solution. The resulting CuO-TiO and Cu-CuO-TiO nanofibrous mats were characterized by scanning electron microscopy (SEM), transmission electron microscopy (TEM), X-ray photoelectron spectroscopy (XPS), X-ray diffraction (XRD), and Brunauer-Emmett-Teller (BET) analysis.

Direct Z-scheme of n-type CuS/p-type ZnS@electrospun PVP nanofiber for the highly efficient catalytic reduction of 4-nitrophenol and mixed dyes.

Environmental pollution has been the most critical issue on earth due to many factors, particularly the industrial chemical waste, which can be detoxified by photocatalytic methods. In this study, we demonstrate the fabrication of an electrospun composite nanofiber embedded with n-type CuS and p-type ZnS in partially carbonized-PVP nanofibers, so-called Z-type-CuS/ZnS@PVP nanofibers, to reduce 4-nitrophenol to 4-aminophenol and degrade the mixed dyes of methylene blue, rhodamine B, and methyl orange. The Z-type-CuS/ZnS@PVP nanofibers were prepared by an electrospinning method, followed by annealing at 180 °C and 400 °C under N atmosphere.