Research Article Preparation of Titanium Dioxide Nanoparticles Immobilized on Polyacrylonitrile Nanofibres for the Photodegradation of Methyl Orange Pardon Nyamukamba, 1 Omobola Okoh, 1 Lilian Tichagwa, 2 and Corinne Greyling 3 1 Chemistry Department, University of Fort Hare, Private Bag X1314, Alice, South Africa 2 Department of Polymer Technology and Engineering, Harare Institute of Technology, Belvedere, Zimbabwe 3 Cape Peninsula University of Technology, Technology Station in Clothing and Textiles, Symphony Way, Bellville, South Africa Correspondence should be addressed to Pardon Nyamukamba; pnyamukamba@uf.ac.za Received 26 September 2016; Accepted 17 November 2016 Academic Editor: Leonardo Palmisano Copyright © 2016 Pardon Nyamukamba et al. Tis is an open access article distributed under the Creative Commons Attribution License, which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited. Herein, we describe the synthesis of titanium dioxide (TiO 2 ) nanoparticles by the hydrolysis and condensation of titanium tetrachloride. Te resulting nanoparticles were immobilized on polyacrylonitrile (PAN) based nanofbres by an electrospinning technique in order to allow simple isolation and reuse of titania semiconductor photocatalyst. Te composite nanofbres were heat treated to convert the polymer nanofbres to carbon nanofbres and to convert amorphous TiO 2 to crystalline TiO 2 . X-ray difraction (XRD) analysis showed that the rutile phase was the major phase and the equatorial peaks of PAN disappeared afer heat treatment at 600 ∘ C. Transmission electron microscopy (TEM) and scanning electron microscopy (SEM) analysis confrmed that some TiO 2 nanoparticles were encapsulated whereas some were surface residing on the electrospun nanofbres. Te TiO 2 nanoparticles were found to lower the cyclization temperature of PAN as indicated by diferential scanning colorimetry (DSC) and diferential thermal analysis (DTA). Photocatalytic studies on the degradation of methyl orange dye under UV light irradiation showed that composite nanofbres were capable of degrading organic contaminants in water. Te carbon nanofbres with surface residing titanium dioxide nanoparticles (TiO 2 /CNF-SR) showed the highest photocatalytic activity (59.35% afer 210 minutes) due to direct contact between the TiO 2 photocatalyst and methyl orange. 1. Introduction Te pollution of water by dangerous industrial organic chemicals is a serious problem as it poses a health risk to humans and the environment. Tese organic contaminants need to be removed if the water is to be used in homes for human consumption. If these organics are not removed, they will react with chlorine during water treatment by chlorination forming by-products such as trihalomethanes, which increase the risk of cancer [1]. Conventional water treatment methods such as adsorption have a disadvantage of producing secondary pollutants that require disposal since it involves accumulation of pollutants on the surface. Tese disadvantages have prompted research interest into the development of new water treatment methods such as photocatalysis which makes use of a semiconductor pho- tocatalyst that can oxidize organic compounds to harmless products such as water and carbon dioxide [2]. Photocatalysis started in 1972 when Fujishima and Honda discovered the photocatalytic splitting of water using titanium electrodes [3]. Te interest in using TiO 2 as a heterogeneous catalyst for wastewater and ground water remediation has increased tremendously [4, 5] because it is capable of degrading several organic and inorganic pollutants [6]. TiO 2 photocatalyst is ideal because it is photostable, relatively cheap, readily available, nontoxic and its photogen- erated holes and electrons are highly oxidizing and reducing, respectively [7]. Several methods have been used for the Hindawi Publishing Corporation International Journal of Photoenergy Volume 2016, Article ID 3162976, 9 pages http://dx.doi.org/10.1155/2016/3162976