Effect of microwave power intensity on synthesis of mesoporous titania nanoparticles for degradation of 2,4-dichlorophenol: Photoactivity performance and kinetic studies

Abstract

In this study, mesoporous titania nanoparticles (MTN) were synthesized via microwave (MW)-assisted method under various heating power (0.12 (MTN1), 0.37 (MTN2) and 0.56 (MTN3) Wg−1). The performance of MTN was investigated on photocatalytic degradation of 2,4-dichlorophenol (2,4-DCP) in aqueous solution using a batch reactor under visible light irradiation. The catalysts were characterized by XRD, UV-Vis DRS, BET and FTIR. The degradation of 2,4-DCP showed that catalyst synthesized at MTN2 was the most effective with 89.43% degradation compared to MTN1 and MTN3 with 82.93% and 86.99%, respectively. This result probably MTN2 has the lowest band gap and highest surface area compared to MTN1 and MTN3. The kinetic studies for degradation 2,4-DCP using MTN2 revealed that the reaction followed pseudo-first order kinetics with reaction rate values (kapp ) decreased as the initial concentration increased that proved the system was preferable at low concentration.