Usgodaarachchi L, Thambiliyagodage C, Wijesekera R, Vigneswaran S, Kandanapitiye M. Fabrication of TiO
2 Spheres and a Visible Light Active α-Fe
2O
3/TiO
2-Rutile/TiO
2-Anatase Heterogeneous Photocatalyst from Natural Ilmenite.
ACS OMEGA 2022;
7:27617-27637. [PMID:
35967057 PMCID:
PMC9366797 DOI:
10.1021/acsomega.2c03262]
[Citation(s) in RCA: 7] [Impact Index Per Article: 3.5] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Grants] [Track Full Text] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 05/25/2022] [Accepted: 07/14/2022] [Indexed: 05/27/2023]
Abstract
High-purity (98.8%, TiO2) rutile nanoparticles were successfully synthesized using ilmenite sand as the initial titanium source. This novel synthesis method was cost-effective and straightforward due to the absence of the traditional gravity, magnetic, electrostatic separation, ball milling, and smelting processes. Synthesized TiO2 nanoparticles were 99% pure. Also, highly corrosive environmentally hazardous acid leachate generated during the leaching process of ilmenite sand was effectively converted into a highly efficient visible light active photocatalyst. The prepared photocatalyst system consists of anatase-TiO2/rutile-TiO2/Fe2O3 (TF-800), rutile-TiO2/Fe2TiO5 (TFTO-800), and anatase-TiO2/Fe3O4 (TF-450) nanocomposites, respectively. The pseudo-second-order adsorption rate of the TF-800 ternary nanocomposite was 0.126 g mg-1 min-1 in dark conditions, and a 0.044 min-1 visible light initial photodegradation rate was exhibited. The TFTO-800 binary nanocomposite adsorbed methylene blue (MB) following pseudo-second-order adsorption (0.224 g mg-1 min-1) in the dark, and the rate constant for photodegradation of MB in visible light was 0.006 min-1. The prepared TF-450 nanocomposite did not display excellent adsorptive and photocatalytic performances throughout the experiment period. The synthesized TF-800 and TFTO-800 were able to degrade 93.1 and 49.8% of a 100 mL, 10 ppm MB dye solution within 180 min, respectively.
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