Abstract
The growing level of wastewater as well as pollution of freshwater by various bacteria are essential worldwide issues which have to be solved. In this contribution, nanocrystalline anatase TiO2 films deposited by magnetron sputtering on high-density polystyrene (HDPE) beads were applied as floating photocatalysts for Salmonella typhimurium bacterial inactivation in water for the first time. Additionally, the photocatalytic degradation of methylene blue dye in the presence of HDPE beads with TiO2 film under UV-B irradiation was investigated. The suitability to adopt such floating photocatalyst structures for practical applications was tested in cycling experiments. The detailed surface morphology, crystal structure, elemental mapping, surface chemical composition and bond analysis of deposited TiO2 films were investigated by scanning electron microscope, X-ray diffractometer and X-ray photoelectron spectroscope techniques. The bacterial viability as well as MB decomposition experiments showed promising results by demonstrating that 6% of bacterial colonies were formed after the first run and only about 1% after the next four runs, which is an appropriate outcome for practical applications. NPN uptake results showed that the permeability of the outer membrane was significantly increased as well.
Highlights
The XRD pattern of TiO2 film deposited on high-density polystyrene (HDPE) beads is presented in Figu observed diffraction pattern corresponds to a crystalline anatase structure
HDPE beads were used as floating substrates for TiO2 film deposited by magnetron sputtering
XRD analysis confirmed that a nanocrystalline anatase structure was synthesized while SEM mapping views showed that even after cycling experiments, Ti and O were quite uniformly distributed over the whole area of the HDPE substrate
Summary
Catalytic processes have started to be implemented in even more areas outside industrial production and they have become an important part of sustainable environmental care technologies as well [2,3,4,5,6,7]. The limited availability of clean drinking and surface water has become a worldwide problem owing to the occurrence and spread of pathogenic bacteria, such as Escherichia coli (E. coli), Salmonella spp., etc. These types of bacteria have been frequently detected in wastewater treatment plants (WWTPs) and without appropriate treatment they can spread and infect drinking or surface water reservoirs and cause harm to human health [8,9].
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