Study on the controlled synthesis of Zr/TiO2/SBA-15 nanophotocatalyst and its photocatalytic performance for industrial dye reactive red X–3B

Abstract

Nanophotocatalytic technology is one of the most promising technologies to treat industrial dyes in waste water. Nanosized TiO2 was loaded on mesoporous SBA-15 molecular sieve by chemical method to prepare TiO2/SBA-15 (TS1) in this work. Then, the transition metal element Zr was further deposited on the surface of TS1 to obtain Zr/TiO2/SBA-15 (ZTS) nanophotocatalysts. The crystal structure, morphology, element distribution and pore size distribution of several samples were studied using small-angle x-ray scattering, X-ray diffraction, Transmission electron microscope, Scanning electron microscope, X-ray photoelectron spectroscopy, N2 adsorption-desorption, UV–Vis diffuse reflectance spectroscopy. The photocatalytic performance of the nanophotocatalyst was evaluated by photocatalyzing reactive red X–3B. The results show that the ZTS nanophotocatalyst has a good mesoporous structure, wherein, the TiO2 is an anatase phase. The specific surface of ZTS reaches 538.24 m2/g and its spectral absorption threshold reaches 425 nm. When the deposition amount of Zr is moderate the ZTS nanophotocatalyst shows quite high photocatalytic activity. In pH 2–10, the photocatalytic activity of ZTS exhibits change with variation of pH value. Under proper conditions, the degradation rate of reactive red X–3B reaches about 96% in ZTS photocatalytic system. Therefore, ZTS nanophotocatalyst has great potential in the treatment of dye wastewater.