A well-designed three-dimensional ternary hierarchical co-axial ZnO@ZnS heteroarchitecture decorated electrospun carbon hollow tube nanofibrous mat: improved ultraviolet-light photocatalytic performance

Abstract

A novel, efficient and versatile strategy was successfully developed to fabricate a well-designed three dimensional photocatalytic ternary hierarchical coaxial ZnO@ZnS heteroarchitecture decorated electrospun carbon hollow tube nanofibrous mat (ZnO@ZnS/C). Photocatalytic ternary coaxial ZnO@ZnS/C hollow tube mats showed an enhanced performance in the degradation of the pollutant methyl orange (MO), which may be attributed to the remarkable synergistic effect between ZnO, ZnS and graphitic carbon hollow tube fibers with a novel morphology and a unique porosity, where the ZnO and ZnS semiconductors act as improved ultraviolet-light absorbers and charge-transfer carriers, and the graphitic carbon hollow tube nanofibrous mats not only provide an appropriate porous support for the well-dispersed semiconductors, and for trapping of organic pollutants, but also act as an electron acceptor, which prolongs the electron lifetime of the excited semiconductor and decreases the recombination rate of the photo-induced electron–hole pairs. Improved efficiency and reusability in the degradation of MO dye makes the coaxial ZnO@ZnS/C hollow heteroarchitectures a commercially promising candidate for the photocatalytic treatment of dye effluent.