Photocatalytic Activities of Electrospun TiO<sub>2</sub>/Styrofoam Composite Nanofiber Membrane in Degradation of Waste Water

Abstract

TiO2/Styrofoam composite fiber membranes were synthesized by using an electrospinning system for water purification applications. Composite fiber membrane was fabricated from precursor solution prepared by dissolving Styrofoam in the mixture of tetrahydrofuran (THF), citronella oil and cajuput oil. The precursor solutions is mixed with TiO2powder with three variations based on the concentration (1:15,1:20 and 1:40). Textile dye with 50 ppm of concentration was performed as a model of waste water. The structure and morphology of each membrane were characterized by using scanning electron microscopy (SEM). The photocatalytic activity was investigated under the bulb light with 60 watt of power in the box of photocatalytic test. Observation of photocatalytic process were performed for 30 hours. The quantitative data of the decrease in the concentration of wantex solution were measured by using UV-Vis spectrometer and simple spectrometer which was developed recently. It was shown that there are significant decrease of the concentration of wantex solutions performed by each membrane. As many as 69% of wantex solution have been successfully degraded for 30 hours under the bulb light.