In situ synthesis of metal oxide nanostructures on flexible SiO2 nanofibrous membrane for environmental application

Abstract

Formaldehyde (HCHO), as a primary carcinogen, may cause severe health problems in light of its wide applications in the indoor decorations. Nowadays, catalytic oxidation proves to be the most promising method to remove HCHO. By virtue of its environment-friendly and cost-efficient advantages, manganese dioxide (MnO2) has attracted enormous attention in HCHO removal. In this work, flexible silica dioxide (SiO2) nanofibrous membrane (NFM) was fabricated by an electrospinning technique and MnO2 nanoparticle was successfully loaded on SiO2 (MnO2@SiO2) nanofibrous membranes (NFMs) through liquid phase synthesis. Scanning electron microscope (SEM), X-ray diffraction (XRD), X-ray photoelectron spectroscopy (XPS) were used to characterize the material. MnO2@SiO2 NFMs exhibited great catalytic oxidation activity for HCHO. This research provides a simple and effective method for the development of transition metal oxides (TMOs) for HCHO degradation at room temperature and the composite MnO2@SiO2 material is expected to be used for air purification.