Heterogeneous photocatalytic treatment of wastewater in ultraviolet light irradiation—photocatalyst Bi₂WO₆ microsphere with high repeatability

Abstract

The treatment of wastewater that includes toxic organic pollutants such as dyes, phenoaniline, phenols and their derivatives is still a challenge due to their biorecalcitrant and acute toxicity to the widespread acceptance of water recycling. Three-dimensional (3D) Bi₂WO₆ microsphere was synthesized by the hydrothermal method using Bi(NO₃)₃ and Na₂WO₄ as raw materials. This structure exhibits high photocatalytic activity for the dyes, toxic organic compounds. The degradation of methlyene blue is 100% in 30 min, 4-nitrylphenol is 95% in 60 min and p-nitrylphenol is 95% in 75 min in ultraviolet (UV) light irradiation. 3D Bi₂WO₆ microsphere is also a good photocatalyst to treat the printing and dyeing sewage, and exhibits high repeatability. After being used the 20th time, Bi₂WO₆ still has high activity to degrade the printing and dyeing sewage, which is very important for a photocatalyst to be used in industry. This study will pave a new way to treat industry wastewater.

Keywords

photocatalyst / semiconductors / wastewater treatment

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Acknowledgements

This work was supported by the Education Department Fund of Anhui Province (No. KJ2010B351), the innovation fund of Anhui Normal University (No. 2010cxjj10), and the National Natural Science Foundation of China (Grant No. 21101006).

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2014 Higher Education Press and Springer-Verlag Berlin Heidelberg