Photocatalytic Degradation and Reaction Pathway Studies of Chlorinated Hydrocarbons in Gaseous Phase

TiO2 was doped with various types of first row transition metals towards the degradation of dichloromethane, chloroform, carbon tetrachloride and a mixture of carbon tetrachloride and chloroform. Zn2+/Fe3+/TiO2 photocatalyst with the ratio of 0.0005: 0.0005: 1 was revealed as the best catalyst in this study. 41.05% of dichloromethane, 49.45% of chloroform and 37.84% of carbon tetrachloride were degraded by this catalyst in the presence of UV light (6 W, 354 nm), irradiated for 90 minutes, and oxidized VOCs gases were analyzed using GC-FID. In this study, the new species of CHCl+ 2 , CH2Cl+, CCl+ 2 and OCl+ . CHCl+ 2 was detected to form from the photocatalytic degradation of chloroform while some new fragments, such as OCl+, CHCl+ 2 and CH2Cl+, are observed during the photocatalytic degradation of carbon tetrachloride.