Photocatalytic effect of TiO2and the effect of dopants on degradation of brilliant green

Abstract

Photocatalysis speeds up the photoreaction in the presence of a catalyst. TiO 2 has low toxicity, less resistance and less corrosion and has semiconductor properties. Its strong oxidative potential of the positive holes oxidizes water to create hydroxyl radicals. Moreover, TiO 2 has been proven to be a tremendous photocatalyst compound by which many organic substrates have been shown to be oxidatively degraded under UV irradiation. In this research the photocatalytic effect of TiO 2 on degradation of Brilliant Green (BG) was studied. In conjunction the effect of dopants such as Zn and Cu on photocatalysis of TiO 2 were also studied. Structural and morphological properties of TiO 2 were characterized by SEM and XRD. From this research the initial concentration of sample, pH of samples, chemical structure of dyes and catalyst loading were most valuable parameters for dye degradation. TiO 2 showed excellent result on degradation of BG compared with doped TiO 2 . 99% degradation was obtained in presence of TiO 2 , followed by TiO 2 /Zn for 87% and TiO 2 /Cu for 46%. TiO 2 doped with transition metals can increase or decrease photocatalytic degradation of dyes.