Characterization of TiO2-Al2O3 composite fibers formed by electrospinning a sol-gel and polymer mixture

Composite fibers of TiO2-Al2O3 were prepared by electrospinning a sol-gel and polymer mixture to form template polymeric fibers followed by calcination. The resulting fibers were characterized using thermogravimetric analysis (TGA), X-ray diffraction (XRD), diffuse reflectance ultraviolet-visible (UV-vis) spectroscopy, scanning electron microscopy (SEM), transmission electron microscopy (TEM), X-ray energy dispersive spectroscopy (XEDS), and X-ray photoelectron spectroscopy (XPS). Calcination at 973 K resulted in mixture of anatase (A) titania and gamma (γ) alumina phases. We calculated a band gap energy of 3.3 eV and found the average diameter of the resulting fibers in the 150-400 nm range. Both XEDS and XPS reveal that fibers are predominantly made of titania.