Preparation of α-Fe₂O₃ nanowires through electrospinning and their Ag₃PO₄ heterojunction composites with enhanced visible light photocatalytic activity

ABSTRACT

In this paper, α-Fe₂O₃ nanowires were prapared by electrospinning combined with calcination, and the effect of calcination temperature on their microstructure and properties were also analyzed. The results show that the α-Fe₂O₃ nanowires after calcined at 550°C present hollow-pipe-like structure and good photocatalytic degradation of RhB and water splitting to produce O₂ evolution. Based the α-Fe₂O₃ nanowires, the α-Fe₂O₃/Ag₃PO₄ nanocomposites were fabricated using ion exchange method, and the water splitting results show that the formation of the heterojunction between α-Fe₂O₃ nanowires and Ag₃PO₄ particles can effectively promote electron-hole separation and then improve the photocatalytic activity.

KEYWORDS:

• α-Fe₂O₃ nanowires
• Ag₃PO₄
• electrospinning
• photocatalytic activity
• water splitting

Additional information

Funding

This work is supported by the National Natural Science Foundation of China (Grant No. 51572189 and 51372169).