Optical and photocatalytic properties of TiO2-SnO2 core-shell nanofibers fabricated by electrospinning

The core-shell nanofibers consist of titanium dioxide and tin dioxide were fabricated by ‎electrospinning ‎method in order to enhance photocatalytic activity under ultraviolet UV ‎irradiation. The morphology and ‎microstructure of the produced nanofibers were investigated ‎using scanning electron microscopy SEM, ‎transition electron microscopy TEM and X-ray ‎diffraction XRD. According to SEM images, the ‎fabricated samples have core-shell TiO2-SnO2 ‎structures with diameters ranging from 120 to 70 nm. The ‎XRD analyzes show that synthesized ‎nanostructures have a crystalline dominant phase after thermal ‎treatment. Furthermore, the results ‎of ultraviolet-visible UV-Vis spectroscopy show that the changes in ‎absorption peaks of ‎Rhodamine b, Methylene blue and Methyl orange have been considerably reduced in ‎presence of ‎core-shell nanofibers TiO2-SnO2. These results confirm that the photocatalytic properties ‎of ‎nanofibers eventually led to a reduction in concentration of the model dye.‎]]>