Using of TiO2/Ag2O Nanocomposite in Degradation of Acid Red 18 Dye in Photoreactor by Taguchi Experimental Design

Abstract

In this paper, the sol–gel method has been use to synthesized TiO2/Ag2O nanoparticles for photocatalytic degradation of azo dye Acid Red 18 (AR18) in aqueous solution. The TiO2/Ag2O nanoparticles were characterized by scanning electron microscopy (SEM), X-ray diffraction (XRD), Fourier transform infrared (FT-IR), and Brunauer–Emmett–Teller (BET) surface area analysis. A photoreactor with capacity 0.5 L, equipped with a low mercury pressure lamp UV-C (15 W) was used. The effective factors for the degradation of dye were determined and optimized using Taguchi fractional design method with four factors having four levels for each factor. Analysis the response of each experiment was based average standard deviation values was calculated. The Taguchi results showed that pH 3, catalyst amount 45 mg/L, H2O2 concentration 25 ppm and temperature 40°C was optimum conditions for this reaction. The most influenced of each factor on the process determined using Analysis of Variance (ANOVA) method. The most significant factor in this process was pH. The interaction between catalyst amount and temperature was the most influencing interaction. So first order reaction with k = 0.0289 min–1 was observed for the photocatalytic degradation reaction.