Facile synthesis of amidoximated PAN fiber-supported TiO2 for visible light driven photocatalysis

TiO2 holds great promising for addressing the environmental issues via solar-to-chemical energy conversion. However, the large-scale application is greatly limited by its poor optical response (below 400 nm). In this study, we have successfully synthesized a visible light driven TiO2 catalyst via a facile hydrothermal route by using amidoximated polyacrylonitrile (PAN) fiber as the support for the first time. The fibrous bidentate ligands not only facilitated the visible light harvesting of TiO2 through ligand-to-metal charge transfer (LMCT) sensitization but also realized the incorporation of N atoms into the TiO2 lattice during the preparation. Such a unique architecture endows the TiO2 with high photocatalytic activity for degradation of several emerging organic contaminations under visible light irradiation (λ > 420 nm), which is dictated by both LMCT and N-doping mechanism. Furthermore, the fibrous support shows high resistance to active oxidizing species and imparts the as-prepared catalyst with excellent cycling stability, demonstrating the robustness of the constructed photocatalytic system for long-term applications. Our findings may offer a new strategy for designing promising visible-light-driven photocatalysts for environmental remediation.