Azo dye degradation kinetics in TiO 2 film-coated photoreactor

Abstract

In this study, commercial nano-size TiO 2 suspension was used to coat on the inner surface of glass reactors and the immobilized TiO 2 film served as photocatalyst to decompose azo dye in aqueous solutions. A full factorial design approach using three factors, namely rotation time, rotation speed, and drying temperature was adopted to prepare TiO 2-coated reactors. The azo dye decomposition conversion under 8 W UV illumination for 4 h was measured as the response of the experimental design. The results showed that the three main effects were significant: increasing the rotation time from 10 to 50 min leaded to 11.4% increase in the dye conversion; increasing the rotation speed from 10 to 50 rpm leaded to 5.6% increase in the dye conversion; increasing the drying temperature from 150 to 250 °C leaded to 2.8% increase in the dye conversion. A series of dye degradation experiments with varying initial dye concentrations were conducted using the TiO 2-coated reactor. The dye degradation rate was found to be − r dye = k a C/(1 + k b C) with k = 0.0326 min −1 and k b = 0.764 L mg −1. The developed kinetic model was used to fit the experimental data satisfactorily.