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Improved performance and prolonged lifetime of titania-based materials: sequential use as adsorbent and photocatalyst

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Abstract

Lifetime is a key index in the evaluation of environmentally functional materials. Although it is well known that adsorption is the first step in photo-catalysis, very little work has been done on the sequential use of materials as both adsorbents and photocatalysts. In this work, two titania-based materials, TiO2 xerogel and TiO2 photocatalyst nanoparticles, were fabricated and evaluated as adsorbent and photocatalyst for the remediation of contaminated water with an azo dye, Acid Orange 7 (AO7), as the modeling pollutant. The TiO2 xerogel showed a high adsorption capacity to AO7 (769 mg/g) and could be regenerated easily with diluted NaOH solution (0.01 mol/L) for several cycles. The exhausted xerogel was calcined at 400 °C for 3 h and used as a photocatalyst for the degradation of AO7. Compared to the nanoparticles directly prepared from fresh TiO2 xerogel, the TiO2 nanoparticles from adsorption exhausted xerogel showed a much higher photocatalytic activity upon both UV and visible light irradiation. Thus the titania-based materials were endowed with improved performance as well as prolonged lifetime.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. State Key Laboratory of Pollution Control and Resource Reuse; School of the Environment, Nanjing University, Nanjing, 210023, China

    Yan Peng, Minghui Li, Shujuan Zhang, Guangze Nie, Meng Qi & Bingcai Pan

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  1. Yan Peng
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  2. Minghui Li
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  3. Shujuan Zhang
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  4. Guangze Nie
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  5. Meng Qi
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  6. Bingcai Pan
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Correspondence to Shujuan Zhang.

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Peng, Y., Li, M., Zhang, S. et al. Improved performance and prolonged lifetime of titania-based materials: sequential use as adsorbent and photocatalyst. Sci. China Chem. 58, 1211–1219 (2015). https://doi.org/10.1007/s11426-014-5302-9

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s11426-014-5302-9

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