Nickel Slag Coated by Titanium Dioxide for Degradation of Methylene Blue

Abstract

The utilization of nickel slag waste coated titanium dioxide (TiO2) as material for organic contaminant degradation was carried out. The aim of this study is to influence of degradation time and nickel slag mass for contaminant degradation in photolysis and photocatalysis system. TiO2 was synthesized by usingsol-gel method. Material characterizations were performed using X-Ray Diffraction (XRD), X-Ray Fluorescence (XRF), and Optical Microscope. XRD Analysis of slag coated TiO2(Slag-TiO2) showed that TiO2 in anatase phase at 2θ = 68.30° (230).XRF analysis showed that dominant compound in nickel slag was silicon. Furthermore, optical microscope analysis showed that surface morphology of nickel slag was porous and solid. The result of research reveals that degradation test of methylene blue was conducted in photolysis and photocatalysis system for 4 hours irradiation with time interval for 30 minutes. The percentage degradation of photolysis and photocatalysis were 48% and 87.50%, respectively. Meanwhile, a mass variety of slag used in methylene blue degradation were 5.46 gram; 7.43 gram, and 9.32 gramfor photolysis and 5.49 gram; 8.02 gram, and 10.02 gram for photocatalysis. Degradation percentage was increased along with the increase of nickel slag mass.