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Nano Research 2022, 15(5): 3872-3879 https://doi.org/10.1007/s12274-021-3994-7
Research Article | Issue | Published: 13 December 2021

Hierarchical loading of CuO on SiO2 aerogel@high crystalline TiO2 nanofibers for efficiently photocatalytic reduction of CO2 without sacrificial agent

Show Author's Information Man Wen1,  Beibei Ren1,  Xiangzhi Ye1,  Jianxiong He2,  Hong Jiang1,  Chunrong Xiong1( )
State Key Laboratory of Marine Resource Utilization in South China Sea, Special Glass Key Lab of Hainan Province, Hainan Provincial Fine Chemical Engineering Research Center, Hainan University, Haikou 570228, China
Hainan haikong Special Glass Techology Co., Ltd., Chengmai 571900, China
Keywords:
high crystallinity, hierarchical structure, fibrous morphology, lattice doping, without sacrificial agent
Topics:
Catalyst activity
Cite this article:
Wen M, Ren B, Ye X, et al. Hierarchical loading of CuO on SiO2 aerogel@high crystalline TiO2 nanofibers for efficiently photocatalytic reduction of CO2 without sacrificial agent. Nano Research, 2022, 15(5): 3872-3879. https://doi.org/10.1007/s12274-021-3994-7
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Abstract Full text Electronic supplementary material About this article

Silica aerogel was prepared by a sol-gel method with combination of freeze drying. The aerogel was filled with TiCl4 in autoclave and used to fabricate a hierarchical structure of TiO2 nanofiber shell and SiO2 aerogel core (SiO2@TiO2). The TiO2 nanofibers with a diameter of 10–15 nm were highly crystalline and mainly grew along the (101) or (001) planes, favoring charge migration along the growth axis of the fibers. The photoluminescence (PL) emission spectra show that the TiO2 nanofibers exhibited much lower PL intensity than P25. The free standing TiO2 nanofibers loaded with CuO had a band gap of 3.04 eV. When CuO was hierarchically loaded on the nanofiber surface and into the aerogel core (SiO2/CuO@TiO2/CuO), the absorption edge significantly red shifted, and the band gap was further narrowed to 2.66 eV. Meanwhile, Fe3+ implanted TiO2 nanofibers on the aerogel surface (SiO2@Fe-TiO2) were also fabricated in the same strategy. The CuO loaded nanofibers (SiO2/CuO@Fe-TiO2/CuO) had a band gap of 2.62 eV. The photocatalytic reduction of CO2 was performed under light irradiation by a 300 W Xe-lamp for 4 h. The methanol yield over the SiO2/CuO@Fe-TiO2/CuO reached ~ 2,400 μmol·gcat−1 in the absence of sacrificial agent.


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Electronic supplementary material
About this article

Hierarchical loading of CuO on SiO2 aerogel@high crystalline TiO2 nanofibers for efficiently photocatalytic reduction of CO2 without sacrificial agent

Show Author's information Man Wen1, Beibei Ren1, Xiangzhi Ye1, Jianxiong He2, Hong Jiang1, Chunrong Xiong1( )
State Key Laboratory of Marine Resource Utilization in South China Sea, Special Glass Key Lab of Hainan Province, Hainan Provincial Fine Chemical Engineering Research Center, Hainan University, Haikou 570228, China
Hainan haikong Special Glass Techology Co., Ltd., Chengmai 571900, China

Abstract

Silica aerogel was prepared by a sol-gel method with combination of freeze drying. The aerogel was filled with TiCl4 in autoclave and used to fabricate a hierarchical structure of TiO2 nanofiber shell and SiO2 aerogel core (SiO2@TiO2). The TiO2 nanofibers with a diameter of 10–15 nm were highly crystalline and mainly grew along the (101) or (001) planes, favoring charge migration along the growth axis of the fibers. The photoluminescence (PL) emission spectra show that the TiO2 nanofibers exhibited much lower PL intensity than P25. The free standing TiO2 nanofibers loaded with CuO had a band gap of 3.04 eV. When CuO was hierarchically loaded on the nanofiber surface and into the aerogel core (SiO2/CuO@TiO2/CuO), the absorption edge significantly red shifted, and the band gap was further narrowed to 2.66 eV. Meanwhile, Fe3+ implanted TiO2 nanofibers on the aerogel surface (SiO2@Fe-TiO2) were also fabricated in the same strategy. The CuO loaded nanofibers (SiO2/CuO@Fe-TiO2/CuO) had a band gap of 2.62 eV. The photocatalytic reduction of CO2 was performed under light irradiation by a 300 W Xe-lamp for 4 h. The methanol yield over the SiO2/CuO@Fe-TiO2/CuO reached ~ 2,400 μmol·gcat−1 in the absence of sacrificial agent.

Keywords: high crystallinity, hierarchical structure, fibrous morphology, lattice doping, without sacrificial agent

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Publication history
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Acknowledgements

Publication history

Received: 02 August 2021
Revised: 14 October 2021
Accepted: 11 November 2021
Published: 13 December 2021
Issue date: May 2022

Copyright

© Tsinghua University Press and Springer-Verlag GmbH Germany, part of Springer Nature 2021

Acknowledgements

Acknowledgements

The authors acknowledgement the financial supports from the Key R&D Planning Project of Hainan Province (No. ZDYF2020015), the Research Lab Construction of Hainan University (No. ZY2019HN09) and the National Natural Science Foundation of China (No. 51761010).

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