Impact of titania phase structure and surface reactivity on the photocatalytic degradation of various dyes and textile wastewater

Abstract

Titania (TiO2) powders have been prepared by precipitation method in different precipitation media which contain sulfate, nitrate or organic species. Photocatalytic degradation of different dyes and a real textile wastewater have been conducted with these powders along with commercial powder Degussa P25 for comparison. Ethyl alcohol (organic medium), sulfuric acid (sulfate medium) and nitric acid (nitrate medium) have been used to dissolve titanium precursor for the precipitation of TiO2 in ammonia solution. UV-Vis DRS and XPS results indicate that S doping in sulfate medium precipitated powder and N doping in nitrate medium precipitated powder has been occurred and the presence of S or N containing impurities on the grain boundaries have been improved light absorption of TiO2 significantly. However, these powders have exhibited low surface reactivities. The highest surface reactivity has been obtained with the powder precipitated in organic medium which also has the highest crystallite sizes (76 nm rutile and 34 nm anatase crystallites) with relatively low rutile weight percentage (10.0%). The surface-normalized rate constants of this powder are 0.02038 min-1.m-2 in real textile wastewater degradation and 0.0161 min-1.m-2 in methyl orange degradation, which are 0.01563 and 0.0091 min-1.m-2, respectively, for Degussa P25. Results have shown that this powder show 30-70% higher surface reactivities compared to Degussa P25. The main structural difference of organic medium precipitated powder and Degussa P25 has been found to be the anatase-rutile weight ratio and crystallite size of rutile phase whereas band gap energy of Degussa P25 is lower and other properties are not significantly different.