White and red Brazilian Sao Simao's kaolinite-TiO2 nanocomposites as catalysts for toluene photodegradation from aqueous solutions

Date

2019

Authors

Mora, Lucas D.
Trujillano, Raquel
Rives, Vicente
Pérez Bernal, María Elena
Faria, Emerson H. de

Director

Publisher

MDPI
Acceso abierto / Sarbide irekia
Artículo / Artikulua
Versión publicada / Argitaratu den bertsioa

Project identifier

  • ES/1PE/MAT2016-78863/
Impacto
No disponible en Scopus

Abstract

The presence of volatile organic compounds in groundwater is a major concern when it is used as a drinking water source because many of these compounds can adversely affect human health. This work reports on the preparation and characterization of white and red Brazilian Sao Simao's kaolinite-TiO2 nanocomposites and their use as catalysts in the photochemical degradation of toluene, a significant volatile organic compound. The nanocomposites were prepared by a sol-gel procedure, using titanium bis(triethanolaminate)diisopropoxide as a precursor. Thermal treatments of the nanocomposites led to different polymorphic titania phases, while the clay changed from kaolinite to metakaolinite. This structural evolution strongly affected the photocatalytic degradation behavior-all the solids efficiently degraded toluene and the solid calcined at 400 degrees C, formed by kaolinite and anatase, showed the best behavior (90% degradation). On extending the photochemical treatment up to 48 h, high mineralization levels were reached. The advantage of photodegradation using the nanocomposites was confirmed by comparing the results from isolated components (titanium dioxide and kaolinite) to observe that the nanocomposites displayed fundamental importance to the photodegradation pathways of toluene.

Description

Keywords

Photodegradation, Kaolinite, Volatile organic compound, Titanium dioxide, Nanocomposites

Department

Zientziak / Institute for Advanced Materials and Mathematics - INAMAT2 / Ciencias

Faculty/School

Degree

Doctorate program

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© 2019 by the authors. Licensee MDPI, Basel, Switzerland. This article is an open access article distributed under the terms and conditions of the Creative Commons Attribution (CC BY) license.

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