Purification of Toxic Compounds in Water and Treatment of Polymeric Materials

Abstract

Among a variety of semiconductors as the medium for photocatalytic treatment of pollutants in the form of suspended powders or immobilized phases, titanium dioxide is the most widely used due to its high stability, good performance, and low cost. In this chapter, photocatalysis of aqueous pollutants covers both organic pollutants, including pyrimidines, phenols, pesticides, synthetic dyes, etc., and inorganic pollutants, mainly focusing on nitrogen-containing ones. In the latter section, application to polymer science encircles applications to pigmentation, photocatalyst-polymer composites, and functional coating.

Enhanced photocatalytic degradation of a phenolic compounds’ mixture using a highly efficient TiO2/reduced graphene oxide nanocomposite

“…However, using any light source and any photocatalyst, the fastest degradation rate was observed in case of NP. The reason for this is attributed to the electron-withdrawing nature of -NO 2 group which tends to enhance the kinetics of the free radical attack to the aromatic ring [62]. In separate solutions, the most sluggish degradation rate for the different phenolic compounds under study was found for phenol except in case of rGOTi photocatalyst under Xe illumination where the rate constant of CP (0.0236 min -1 ) was found to be less than the corresponding one for phenol under the same conditions (0.0238 min -1 ) as can be noticed in Table 3.…”

Degradation and mineralization of aqueous nitrobenzene using ETS-4 photocatalysis

“…3(a). Initial high concentration reduces the diffusion rate of intermediates from the catalyst surface as well as the transfer rate of the substrate towards catalyst which is another reason for similar performance of all the catalysts in first hour of reaction [67].…”