Impregnation of activated carbon-TiO2 composite and its application in photodegradation of procion red synthetic dye in aqueous medium

Abstract

Synthetic dyes are often used for textile dyeing process. The dye wastewater containing hazardous materials, toxic, and also harmful to the environment. Among the existing technologies,photodegradation using semiconductor catalyst is a promising alternative method. However, the weak adsorption capacity of photocatalyst is an issue for photocatalysis process. To overcome this lack, photocatalyst material needs to combine with an adsorbent. The composite was synthesized by combining the function of activated carbon as adsorbents and TiO2 as a catalyst. The objective of the study was to synthesize a composite of activated carbon and TiO2 through impregnation method. The activated carbon-TiO2 composite produced was characterized to determine the surface morphology and the elements contained in the composite by using SEM/EDX. The composite activity to photodegrade various concentrations of Procion red, as a model of synthetic dye, was also investigated. To compare the activity of activated carbon-TiO2 composite in degrading Procion red, different conditions were applied by using UV lamps, sunlight irradiation, and without irradiation (darkroom). The activated carbon-TiO2 composite was able to photodegrade of Procion red by UV light irradiated at optimum wavelength 530 nm. The highest photodegradation percentage of 58.9% and 71.7 % were obtained when using the activated carbon-TiO2 composite ratio of 3:7 and 1:1, respectively.