Nano n-TiO2-P25@ECH@ZrO2-SO3H: a novel heterogeneous semiconductor photocatalyst with SO3H function, effective in removing colored pollutants from aqueous solutions

In the present work, TiO2 nanoparticles was modified using SO3H-functionalized heterostructure by simple covalent grafting strategy [1]. The photocatalytic kinetic degradation of violet 16 was investigated using this novel nano-photocatalyst in aqueous solution under two different acidic and basic pHs. The blue LED was used to irradiate the solution at different times over 0-12 h. The reactions were monitored spectrophotometrically and the rank analysis of the data showed there are two spectrophotometrically active components in this system. Multivariate hard modelling approach was applied on the data at basic pH to compute the rate constant of the photo-degradation reaction based on postulated consecutive kinetic model, A→ B→ C [2]. The obtain k1 and k2 were 0.0047 h-1 and 0.0127 h-1, respectively. Apart from estimating rate constants, the pure kinetic and spectral profiles of the species involved in the kinetic processes achieved. However, dye’s degradation was too slow under acidic pH as no significant changes of signals were observed over time range of 0-12 h.