A novel fabrication method for titanium dioxide/activated carbon fiber electrodes and the effects of titanium dioxide on phenol degradation

Abstract

In this paper, the nano-titanium dioxide/activated carbon fiber (TiO2/ACF) electrodes are prepared by using ship-in-a-bottle method with Ti(OC4H9)4 as a raw material. The amounts of TiO2 immobilized on the activated carbon fiber are 0.14, 0.28 and 0.42g/g ACF, respectively. The adsorption behavior and electro-catalytic oxidation of phenol with these three kinds of electrodes are investigated. Experimental results show that the maximum adsorption quantities of the phenol decreased by 12.41%, 17.25% and 32.38% respectively with the increase of TiO2, while the adsorption rates decreased by 56.22%, 71.26% and 88.73%, respectively. However, the removal efficiency of phenol and the production rate of hydroxyl radicals (OH) increased with the increase of TiO2. Compared with sol–gel method, TiO2/ACF electrode prepared by ship-in-a-bottle method not only exhibit better electro-catalytic activity and stability, but also cheaper. Because the amount of Ti(OC4H9)4 used to prepare TiO2 can be reduced by more than 33%. In addition, the nano-TiO2 particles, smaller and more uniform in size, can be immobilized firmly and prepared easily in this method.