Community Refinery Wastewater Photodegradation by Fe-Doped TiO2 Films

Abstract

Photocatalytic treatment of real community wastewater using Fe-doped TiO2 nanofilm was prepared by modified sol-gel method together with a simple dip-coating technique. The process was investigated in a home-made batch photoreactor. The as-prepared nanocomposite film was characterized by UV-Vis diffuse, XRD, BET, and Fe-SEM analysis. The poultry processing wastewater was collected from Nakhonsawan Municipality. Subsequently, the photocatalytic treatment of the wastewater was performed using a home-made photoreactor operated in batch mode to demonstrate the effects of Fe-dopant concentration with various layer numbers. The catalysts were irradiated using four lamps of 15 W power that emitted visible light and performed at room temperature. The samples were collected every 15 min and analyzed for biochemical oxygen demand (BOD) and chemical oxygen demand (COD) removal efficiency compared to pure TiO2 nanofilm and direct photolysis. From the results, the mixture of rutile and anatase was obtained with the maximum specific surface area of 150.12 mg2/g and the average particle size of 39.95 nm for 3 layers of 0.15% wt/v Fe-doped TiO2. The BOD and COD value at 90 min time treatment was presented to be 8.87 and 32 mg L−1, respectively, in the presence of 0.15% wt/v Fe-doped TiO2 film photocatalysts. Moreover, atomic absorption spectrometric result ensured that no Ti contamination was detected in all parts of plants after watering by the treated water. Hence, the photocatalytic treatment markedly improved the quality of the community wastewater.