Water pollution is increasing at an ever increasing pace and the whole world is in the cancerous grip of this pollution. Various industries are discharging their untreated effluents into the nearby water resources; thus, adding to the existing water pollution to a great extent. Hence, there is a pressing demand to develop an alternate technology for wastewater treatment and in this context; photocatalysis has emerged as an Advanced Oxidation Process with green chemical approach for such a treatment. This chapter deals with photocatalytic degradation of different kinds of organic pollutants; mainly surfactants, pesticides, dyes, phenols, chloro compounds, nitrogen containing compounds etc. Mechanisms of their degradation have also been discussed with hydroxyl and allied radicals as the main active oxidizing species.
The photocatalytic degradation of methylene blue dye under visible light has been investigated using chromium modified titanium dioxide supported on zeolite (Cr-TiO2/zeolite). The photocatalyst was prepared by sol-gel method and characterized by X-ray diffraction and SEM. The rate of photodegradation of dye was monitored spectrophotometrically. The effect of pH, dye concentration, amount of photocatalyst and intensity of light on the rate of photocatalytic reaction was observed. The results showed that the use of Cr-doped TiO2 increased the rate of photocatalytic degradation of methylene blue as compared to untreated TiO2. The photocatalytic mechanism of Cr-TiO2 catalyst has been tentatively discussed. Keywords: Methylene blue, zeolite, chromium, photocatalytic degradation
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