Abstract
Sulfated (5 wt.%) TiO 2 and non-sulfated TiO 2 (rutile) modified by NH 4VO 3 using incipient wetness impregnation technique to achieve a loading of 2 wt.% V 2O 5 were thoroughly characterized by means of X-ray powder diffraction (XRD), Fourier-transform infrared spectroscopy (FT-IR), UV–vis absorption spectroscopy, N 2 sorptiometry, particle size analyzer and pyridine-FT-IR that was used to investigate the acidity of the samples. Degradation of methylene blue (MB) dye was tested for the effectiveness of the samples. The results revealed that MB degradation was highly improved with V supported on TiO 2–SO 4 and showed a conversion comprises of 98% after UV irradiation (emitting at 400 nm) for 70 min exceeding that of SO 4 free TiO 2 sample (78%) obtained at the same period of illumination. This was due to the large surface area (345 m 2 g −1), small crystallites size, reduced band-gap energy and presence of basic sites namely O 2 − and OH − moieties those take part in the reaction as additional oxidizing agents. The photocatalytic degradation of MB was found to follow first order rate kinetics. More information on the activity, surface texturing, kinetics and TOC removal were well evaluated, compared and discussed for all samples.
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