Use of zirconium phosphate system as a photocatalyst: Photobleaching of tolonium chloride

Abstract

Water pollution due to effluents from dyes and printing industries poses a serious problem for aquatic life. Photocatalysis has attracted the attention of chemists all over the world because it is an efficient and ecofriendly process to combat the problem of water pollution. Photocatalytic bleaching of tolonium chloride on zirconium phosphate was carried out in presence of light. The progress of the reaction was monitored spectrophotometrically, and it follows pseudo first order kinetics. The effect of variation of different parameters, like concentration of tolonium chloride, pH, amount of semiconductor and light intensity on the rate of bleaching, was also studied. A tentative mechanism for the photocatalytic bleaching of tolonium chloride has been proposed.