NANO CORE-SHELL PHOTOCATALYSTS FOR TREATMENT OF WATER POLLUTANTS

Abstract

Nano-materials are considered as a part of nanotechnology which is expected to provide many applications in the future. However, separation and reuse of the nano materials are challenging for catalysis application in liquid phase reactions. In this research, nano core-shell containing TiO₂ which possess magnetic property have been synthesized using two methods: sol-gel method and modified sol-gel method. The materials have been characterized using different techniques such as X-ray Diffraction (XRD), Transmission electron microscopy (TEM). TiO₂ anatase structure of the catalysts have been verified from XRD patterns. The potential application for the treatment of water contaminated by organic pollutants has been investigated via the photocatalytic degradation of methyl orange (MO) and p-nitrophenol (NP) as models using the as-synthesized materials. The magnetic photocatalyst which was synthesized by the sol-gel method, exhibited comparable activity as the commercial TiO₂ (P25) after three hours reaction. However, the catalyst prepared by the modified sol-gel method performed high recyclability.