Beneficial effect of TiO 2 surface fluorination on the complete photooxidation of ethanol vapor

Pickering Emulsions of Fluorinated TiO2: A New Route for Intensification of Photocatalytic Degradation of Nitrobenzene

Fluorination of the TiO₂ surface has been often reported as a tool to increase the photocatalytic efficiency due to the beneficial effects in terms of production of oxidizing radicals. Moreover, it is shown that the unique amphiphilic properties of the fluorinated TiO₂ (TiO₂-F) surface allow one to use this material as a stabilizer for the formulation of Pickering emulsions of poorly soluble pollutants such as nitrobenzene (NB) in water. The emulsions have been characterized in terms of size of the droplets, type of emulsion, possibility of phase inversion, contact angle measurements, and optical microscopy. The emulsified system presents micrometer-sized droplets of pollutant surrounded by the TiO₂-F photocatalyst. Consequently, the system can be considered to be composed of microreactors for the degradation of the pollutant, which maximize the contact area between the photocatalyst and substrate. The enhanced photocatalytic activity of TiO₂-F was confirmed in the present paper as the apparent rate constants of NB photodegradation were 16 × 10^-3 and 12 × 10^-3 min^-1 for fluorinated and bare TiO₂, respectively. At NB concentrations largely exceeding its solubility, the rate constant was 0.04 × 10^-3 min^-1 in the presence of both TiO₂ and TiO₂-F. However, unlike TiO₂, TiO₂-F stabilized NB/water emulsions and, under these conditions, the efficiency of NB photocatalytic degradation in the emulsified system was ca. 18 times higher than in the nonemulsified one. This result is relevant also in terms of practical applications because it opens the route to one-pot treatments of biphasic polluted streams without the need of preliminary physical separation treatments.

Direct evidence of the key role of UV-formed peroxide species in photocatalytic gas-solid oxidation in air on anatase TiO2 particles

IR spectroscopy was applied for the in situ investigations of surface intermediates formed on the surface of TiO2 (anatase) and ZnO under UV light illumination in air and their reactivity in the elimination of simple pollutant molecules. UV-irradiation of TiO2 (anatase) in air leads to the generation of peroxo-species with the peaks at 852 and 912 cm-1, but the bands of O2˙-ads were not detected. This is, to our knowledge, the first direct in situ IR spectroscopic detection of O2 photosorption intermediates in moist air. The formation of peroxo-species in these conditions is specific for TiO2 (anatase), whereas on ZnO the predominant species under UV light illumination in air are O2˙-ads and H2O2, desorbing into gas phase. Adsorbed water and surface hydroxyl groups contribute to the formation and stabilization of peroxo-species on TiO2 anatase during UV illumination in an oxygen atmosphere. If UV-irradiation is carried out in the environment of moist argon instead of moist air, the peroxo-species on TiO2 anatase are formed from water in a negligible quantity. Peroxo-species formed after O2 photoadsorption on TiO2 anatase in moist air have band positions similar to peroxo-species formed after photodecomposition of H2O2 (with accompanying color change of this sample from yellow to white). Direct experimental IR-spectroscopic evidence of peroxo-species reactivity as oxidative intermediates on TiO2 (anatase) in CO and ethanol vapor photooxidative processes is firstly obtained. These results confirm our early conclusion that peroxo-species formed under UV-irradiation in O2 on the hydrated surface of TiO2 (anatase) can be responsible for the surprising extreme dependence of the CO photooxidation rate on the adsorbed water coverage with the maximum at ∼0.5 ML. The ZnO sample was not active in the photooxidation of these molecules in air. It is concluded that UV formed peroxo-species are important diamagnetic oxidative intermediates in heterogeneous photochemical gas-solid oxidation processes on TiO2 (anatase).