Wettability and Surface Area Characteristic of PVDF Nanofibrous Composite Film

Wettability has been perceived as one of the important features of nanofibrous composite films for photocatalytic application. A nanofibrous film composed of electrospun polyvinylidene fluoride (PVDF) with an impregnated of ZnO, ZnO/Ag2CO3, ZnO/Ag2CO3/Ag2O, and ZnO/Ag2O photocatalyst has been prepared by a facile stirred process under room temperature conditions. These nanofibrous composite films were manufactured by electrospinning. The fabricated nanofibrous composite films were characterized by scanning electron microscopy, nitrogen adsorption based on BET (Brunauer, Emmett and Teller) principle and drop shape analysis of water contact angle in order to recognize the dependence of wettability towards morphological structure, specific surface areas and pore size properties. It is found that with a large pore size diameter, the wettability of nanofibrous composite films wont disrupted by porosity of nanofibrous structure possessed by capillary effect. In contrast, the impregnation of these nanocomposite catalyst revealed the wettability of the modified PVDF membrane were self-governing by surface area and capillary action of nanofibrous composite films.