Comparative analysis of photo degradation kinetics using linear and non-linear kinetic models

Abstract

The present studies demonstrate the synthesis of nanocarbon ball-like structures with an approximate size of 50 to 80 nm diameter. A visible light active photocatalyst was achieved by co-doping Y/Fe/TiO2 on the nanocarbon structure. The carbon nanostructure acts as a host material for the Y/Fe/TiO2 composite and its synergetic effect makes the titania to generate electron-hole pair under the irradiation of visible light. The composition and morphological structures were studied using XRD and FESEM. From UV-DRS analysis, the calculated optical band gap for the composite catalyst is 2.73 eV. The photo-induced fragmentation of the Rhodamine-B dye was studied and the actual kinetics was evaluated using linear and non-linear methods. The non-linear kinetic model found more appropriate to describe the kinetics and the linear model has some limitations.