Title
Peptide‐Templated‐Synthesis of TiO₂ Nanofibers with Tunable Photocatalytic Activity
Author
Wei Qi, Qing Li, Jiaxing Zhang, Yuefei Wang, Rongxin Su, Zhimin He
Year
2018
Journal
Chemistry A European Journal
Abstract
Nanofabrication based on biological templates has attracted considerable interests because of its applications in materials science and biomedicine. We report a facile method for the synthesis of well‐defined TiO₂ nanofibers using a simple N‐(9‐fluorenylmethoxycarbonyl)‐protected phenylalanine‐phenylalanine‐aspartic acid tripeptide (Fmoc‐Phe‐Phe‐Asp‐OH, Fmoc‐FFD) as the template. Compared with other synthetic methods of inorganic nanomaterials, self‐assembling peptide could control the structure and the catalytic activity of the synthesized nanomaterials in the mild synthetic conditions. The as‐synthesized peptide‐TiO₂ hybrid nanofibers and the calcined TiO₂ nanofibers were characterized using the transmission electron microscopy (TEM), scanning electron microscopy (SEM), circular dichroism (CD) spectroscopy, and X‐ray diffraction (XRD). The results showed that well‐defined TiO₂ nanofibers could form when the pH of the peptide solution was 5‐7, while nanoparticles formed when the pH was 8. Moreover, the peptide‐templated TiO₂ nanofibers showed improved photocatalytic activity for the degradation of methyl orange (MO). And the photocatalytic activity of the TiO₂ could be controlled by adjusting the pH of the peptide solution during the synthetic process.
Instrument
J-810
Keywords
Circular dichroism, Secondary structure, Chemical stability, Cotton effect, Nanostructures, Tertiary structure, Materials, Biochemistry