Piezo-, photo- and piezophotocatalytic activity of electrospun fibrous PVDF/CTAB membrane

Abstract

A composite material based on polyvinylidene fluoride (PVDF) nanofibers modified with cetyltrimethylammonium bromide (CTAB) was synthesized by coaxial electrospinning. The morphology and structure of the material were studied by SEM, FTIR spectroscopy, X-ray diffraction analysis, XPS, and the piezo-, photo- and piezophotocatalytic activity during the decomposition of the organic dye Methylene blue (MB) was studied. It was shown that the addition of CTAB promotes additional polarization of the PVDF structure due to the ion-dipole interaction. It was shown for the first time that the addition of CTAB promotes the photosensitivity of the wide-gap dielectric polymer PVDF (the band gap is more than 6 eV). It was demonstrated that the photocatalytic decomposition efficiency is 91% in 60 minutes. The material exhibits piezocatalytic activity - 73% in 60 minutes. The experiments on trapping active oxidizing forms established that OH hydroxyl radicals play the main role in the photocatalytic process.