Toluene or Formaldehyde Removal by Photocatalysis and Adsorption Using Hybrid Optical Fiber Textiles Containing Activated Carbon and/or TiO₂

Abstract

Indoor air treatment has become a significant concern in recent years. The aim of this study is to investigate the effectiveness of coupling adsorption and photocatalysis for the removal of toluene and formaldehyde, especially in the presence of optical fiber textile. First, we examine the adsorption properties of various commercial activated carbon (AC) filters, as well as different amounts of AC deposited on optical fiber textiles, and assess the impact of titanium dioxide (TiO₂) on the adsorption performance. In the second phase, we compare the photocatalytic degradation of toluene and formaldehyde under different irradiance levels. Finally, we analyze the impact of three AC-TiO₂ combinations: separate filters, TiO₂ deposited on AC-impregnated fiber optic textiles, and TiO₂ partially deposited on AC filters. The results led us to test a new photocatalytic and adsorbent material, including heating wires and optical fibers.

Keywords

Air treatment / Photocatalysis / TiO₂ / Adsorption / Activated carbon / Coupling

CRediT authorship cont+ribution statement

Conceptualization: C.G., L.L., L.P.; Methodology: C.G., L.L., F.D.; Validation: C.G., L.P.; Formal Analysis: E.Z., C.G.; Investigation: E.Z., F.D., J.F.N.; Data Curation: E.Z., C.G.; Writing—Original Draft Preparation: C.G.; Writing—Review & Editing: C.G., L.L., L.P., F.D.; Visualization: E.Z., C.G.; Supervision: F.D., C.G., L.L., L.P.; Project Administration: C.B.; Funding Acquisition: C.B.

Availability of data and materials

The data presented in this study are available on request from the corresponding author.

Funding

This research was funded by the French ANR agency, grant number ANR-AAPG2022-CES04.

Declaration of competing interest

The authors declare that they have no known competing financial interests or personal relationships that could have appeared to influence the work reported in this paper.

Acknowledgements

We thanks C. Lorentz for RMN analysis.

Appendix A. Supplementary data

The following supporting information can be found at: https://www.sciepublish.com/article/pii/799, Figure S1: (a) Annular reactor used in tangential mode (OUT 1) or in through mode (OUT 2). In our case, main of the experiments were done in through mode except those made with heat. (b) photo of the reactor used with luminous heating textiles and arrangement of these two textiles in the reactor; Figure S2: Scheme of the experimental setup; Figure S3: Formaldehyde adsorption using 100 cm × 200 cm of three materials Optical fiber textile + CA2.6, Actitex and Maire CA + TiO₂; Figure S4: Photocatalytic degradation of toluene in presence de TiO₂ (3 mg/cm²) coated on optical fiber textile under 4 ppm of toluene at 500 mW/L and 2 mW/cm² of UV-A. Figure S5: NMR ¹H of the extraction of the yellow coloration obtained after photocatalytic degradation of toluene on optical fiber textile coated with TiO₂ P25.

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