Evaluation of the photocatalytic activity of TiO2 based catalysts for the degradation and mineralization of cyanobacterial toxins and water off-odor compounds under UV-A, solar and visible light

Abstract

Research on the development of new TiO2 based photocatalysts has been receiving increased attention due to the ability of TiO2 to degrade a great variety of organic compounds upon UV-A irradiation. In order to evaluate the photocatalytic performance of the new synthesized materials, it is essential to follow specific procedures during the photocatalytic process. Special care should be given on light intensity, presence of oxygen, catalyst loading, initial concentration of substrate, adsorption, pH, different irradiation wavelength, mineralization, intermediate products and toxicity. In this study, catalysts such as commercially available materials (Degussa P25, Kronos vlp-7000) and home prepared materials (N-TiO2, GO–TiO2 and Ref-TiO2) have been tested for their photocatalytic ability on the degradation and mineralization of the cyanobacterial toxin microcystin-LR and off-odor causing compounds (geosmin, 2-methylisoborneol) under UV-A, solar and visible light irradiation. Also, the identification of intermediate products and their toxicity under different experimental conditions for microcystin-LR was studied. Our results showed that in all cases of the compounds Degussa P25 was the better performing catalyst under UV-A light irradiation. Under solar light, all compounds were effectively degraded with the doped materials (N-TiO2, GO–TiO2, Kronos vlp-7000) showing better photocatalytic performance than theirs undoped material (Ref-TiO2). As far as concerning visible light irradiation, only the visible light activated materials showed some photocatalytic activity (N-TiO2, Kronos vlp-7000). It was also showed in order to have reproducible evaluation results on the photocatalytic performance of several catalysts (intra and inter-laboratory), a careful selection of experimental parameters is required.