Potential of Ag–Fe co-doped TiO₂ nanocomposite for solar photocatalysis of high COD pharmaceutical effluent and influencing factors

Abstract

Ag–Fe co-doped TiO₂ photocatalysts were synthesized by sol–gel method followed by calcination and characterized using X-ray diffraction, scanning electron microscopy, Brunauer–Emmett–Teller, UV–Vis spectroscopy, transmission electron microscopy (TEM) and energy-dispersive X-ray analysis. Photocatalytic activity of these photocatalysts was compared with undoped TiO₂ and Fe-doped TiO₂ for the degradation of synthetic wastewater prepared from diflourotriazoleacetophenone (DFTA) (initial concentration of 8 g/L with initial COD of 75,000 mg/L). The nanoparticles were engineered by varying the catalyst composition (Ti/Ag molar ratio 10–55) for efficient photocatalytic degradation of DFTA. Factors affecting degradation such as catalyst dosage (1–8 g/L), adsorption time in dark (15–60 min) and pH (2–8) were studied to determine optimum conditions for wastewater treatment. The catalyst composition with Fe content of 0.5 wt% and Ti-to-Ag molar ratio of 30, catalyst dosage of 3 g/L, pH 5, adsorption time in dark of 30 min and solar radiation time of 5 h were found to be the optimum conditions for the efficient photocatalytic degradation of DFTA.

Keywords

Sol–gel synthesis / Ag–Fe co-doped TiO₂ / Diflourotriazoleacetophenone / Solar photocatalysis

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