Photocatalytic degradation of safranin-O and methylene blue using TiO2 supported by zeolite X synthesized by kaolin

In recent years, semiconductor photocatalysis become more and more attractive and important for degradation of organic materials. The immobilization of the catalyst on inert support surfaces has been recently used in order to avoid the catalyst-recovering step. In this study, zeolite X was synthesized by kaolin. The optimum conditions to get pure zeolite phase with good crystallinity from kaolin were found. TiO2/zeolite was prepared by the impregnation method. Photocatalytic degradation of safranin-O and methylene blue by light absorption and the influence of various parameters such as amount of loading, amount of photocatalyst, irradiation time, pH value, and initial concentration was studied. The results show that TiO2/zeolite was an active photocatalyst.