Degradation and mineralization of aqueous nitrobenzene using ETS-4 photocatalysis

Abstract

AbstractThe microporous Engelhard titanosilicate ETS-4 is synthesized with the photocatalytic active –Ti–O–Ti– quantum wires in its framework. The transition metal cations are ion exchanged from their metal salt solutions to give M-ETS-4 (M = Fe, Co, Ni, Cu and Ag). The synthesized materials are extensively characterized by XRD, FT-IR, TGA, SEM and UV–vis-DRS. The photocatalytic activity of these synthesized samples is investigated for the degradation and mineralization of aqueous solution of nitrobenzene as a model pollutant compound. Decrease in chemical oxygen demand (COD) and absorbance of photodegraded NB revealed mineralization of NB. The photocatalytic activity of ETS-4 is attributed to the active –Ti–O–Ti– wires in its framework. Transition metal ions present in ETS-4 enhance the photocatalytic activity by the separating photogenerated charge carriers in ETS-4. Ag ions are found to show pronounced improvement in the photocatalytic activity compared to other transition metal ions. COD study reveals...