Solar-mediated detoxification process of harmful pollutants for the sustainable environment using metal doped titania nanocatalysts

Description

In the recent decade, the development in the industrial sector leads to large amount of waste water. These waste water from the industries causes water pollution. The industrial waste water contains dye as a major pollutant and dyes are the second largest pollutant in the world. Waste water from dyeing industries is toxic to the environment and affects human health. Hence, to preclude this issue an effective and innovative method should be adopted before the discharge of water bodies into ecosystem. Our purpose of the present research is to identify the best nano photocatalyst for the degradation of harmful pollutants such as dyes and other organic compounds. Sol-gel method was adopted for the synthesis of titania based nano catalysts. The synthesized photocatalysts were characterized by XRD, UV-DRS, FT-IR, SEM and TEM. Optimization parameters such as effect of initial concentration, effect of catalyst weight and effect of pH were studied. The photocatalytic degradation of Acid Black-1and Victoria blue dye by the three synthesized catalysts was carried out under sunlight irradiation with the optimized values. The degradation of both the dyes were monitored by UV-Visible spectrophotometer. Among all the synthesized nano photocatalysts, Nb/TiO2 was found to be the best and it degraded the dye Acid Black-1 at and Victoria blue to the maximum. The catalyst recyclability and water quality parameters were also tested and reported.