A rapid and simple microwave-assisted digestion procedure for spectrophotometric determination of titanium dioxide photocatalyst on activated carbon

Deposition of titanium dioxide (TiO2) on activated carbon (AC) surface has been widely utilized for the production of TiO2/AC photocatalyst, which can be used in photo-degradation of pollutants. In this work, a fast and simple digestion procedure has been developed for the spectrophotometric quantitative analysis of TiO2 in TiO2/AC photocatalyst. Microwave-assisted digestion was used in the procedure. The microwave-digestion procedure was optimized using the single-variable method. Variables optimized included time of ashing, effective digestion time, volume and concentration of sulfuric acid, effect of adding a digestion catalyst, effect of sample pulverizing and on–off time cycle of the microwave. The analysis was completed spectrophotometrically after addition of hydrogen peroxide to the digested solution. Procedure precision and accuracy was tested by application to photocatalyst samples containing known amounts of TiO2, and compared with previously published spectrophotometric procedures. The proposed microwave procedure was capable of recovering 98.4–101.1% of TiO2 in the catalyst in less than 10 min, without the need for sample ashing. Analytical precision is 1.42–2.39% relative standard deviation (R.S.D.). In terms of accuracy and precision, the proposed microwave procedure was comparable with other procedures, but the proposed microwave procedure was superior in terms of shorter procedure duration.