Development of titanium dioxide nanoparticles/nanosolution for photocatalytic activity
Biological and chemical contaminants by man-made activities have been serious global issue. Exposure of these contaminants beyond the limits may result in serious environmental and health problem. Therefore, it is important to develop an effective solution that can be easily utilized by mankin...
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| Main Author: | |
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| Format: | Thesis |
| Language: | English |
| Published: |
2015
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| Subjects: | |
| Online Access: | http://eprints.uthm.edu.my/1746/1/24p%20SITI%20AID%20IBRAHIM.pdf http://eprints.uthm.edu.my/1746/ |
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| Summary: | Biological and chemical contaminants by man-made activities have been serious
global issue. Exposure of these contaminants beyond the limits may result in serious
environmental and health problem. Therefore, it is important to develop an effective
solution that can be easily utilized by mankind. One of the effective ways to
overcome this problem is by using titanium dioxide (TiO2). TiO2 is a well-known
photocatalyst that widely used for environmental clean-up due to its ability to
decompose organic pollutant and kill bacteria. Although it is proven TiO2 has an
advantage to solve this concern, its usefulness unfortunately is limited only under
UV light irradiation. Therefore, the aim of this work was to investigate the potential
of TiO2 that can be activated under visible light by the incorporation of metal ions
(Fe, Ag, Zr and Ag-Zr). In this study, sol-gel method was employed for the synthesis
of metal ions incorporated TiO2. XRD analysis revealed that all samples content
biphasic anatase-brookite TiO2 of size 3 nm to 5 nm. It was found that the
incorporation of these metal ions did not change the morphology of TiO2 but the
crystallinity and optical properties were affected. The crystallinity of anatase in the
biphasic TiO2 was found to be decreased and favored brookite formation. PL analysis
showed metal ions incorporation suppressed the recombination of electron-hole pairs
while the band gap energy of TiO2 (3.2 eV) was decreased by the incorporation of Fe
(2.46 eV) and Ag (2.86 eV). Among this incorporation, Ag-Zr incorporated TiO2
showed highest performance for methyl orange degradation (93%) under fluorescent
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light irradiation for 10 h. This follows by Zr-TiO2 (82%), Fe-TiO2 (75%) and Ag�TiO2 (43%). Meanwhile, the highest antibacterial performance was exhibited by Ag�TiO2. TEM images showed that E.coli bacterium was killed within 12 h after treated
with Ag-TiO2. The results obtained from the fieldwork study established that Ag-Zr
incorporation have excellent performances for VOC removal and antibacterial test.
The VOC content after treated with Ag-Zr-TiO2 fulfilled the Industry Code of
Practice on Indoor Air Quality 2010 which is lower than 3 ppm. In addition, the
percentage of microbes also found to be decrease around 45 % within 5 days of
monitoring. |
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