Photocatalytic Performance of Carbon Monolith/TiO₂Composite

Abstract

The new and simple approach for deposition of catalytically active TiO 2 coating on carbon monolith (CM) carrier was presented. CM photocatalysts were impregnated with TiO 2 using titanium solution and thermal treatment, and their photocatalytic activity was investigated in the process of methylene blue (MB) photodegradation. For the purpose of comparison, CM composite photocatalysts were prepared by dip-coating method, which implies binder usage. The presence of TiO 2 on CM carrier was confirmed by Raman spectroscopy and scanning electron microscopy. The sorption characteristics of CM and the role of adsorption in the overall process of MB removal were evaluated through amount of surface oxygen groups obtained by temperatureprogrammed desorption and specific surface area determined by BET method. CM has shown good adsorption properties toward MB due to high amount of surface oxygen groups and relatively high specific surface area. It was concluded that photocatalytic activity increases with CM disc thickness due to increase of MB adsorption and amount of deposited TiO 2 . Good photocatalytic activity achieved for samples obtained by thermal treatment is the result of better accessibility of MB solution to the TiO 2 particles induced by binder absence.

Influence of N doping on structural and photocatalytic properties of hydrothermally synthesized TiO2/carbon composites

“…To obtain highly reactive photocatalysts, in addition to TiO2 doping with nitrogen, photocatalysts can be combined with different carbon materials that play the role of catalysts. 1,[8][9][10] It was found that nitrogen doping combined with some carbon material as a carrier lead to an increase in the specific surface area of the material, as well as its photocatalytic activity under visible irradiation. 1 Previously, 8 we have used a simple method of hydrothermal synthesis to obtain highly reactive TiO2/carbon composites for photocatalytic degradation of selected organic pollutants, under UV irradiation.…”