Abstract
In this study, the TiO2/UV photodegradation of neutral red (NR) dye has been investigated in aqueous heterogeneous suspension. Response surface methodology based on a three-variable, three-level Box-Behnken design was employed to study and optimize the photocatalytic process. The interactive effects of three operational parameters including irradiation time, pH, and the catalyst amount on the dye degradation and chemical oxygen demand (COD) reduction were analyzed. The dye degradation efficiency was accurately modeled by a partial cubic equation with an R2 of 0.99. A high color (90.0%) and COD (85.6%) reduction was obtained using minimum amount of TiO2 nanocatalyst (68.0 mg) at the optimal conditions of 28.7 min and pH 6.47. The results also showed that the kinetics of adsorption of NR on TiO2 nanoparticles can be described by the pseudo-second-order and parabolic diffusion models.
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