VISIBLE LIGHT SOLAR PHOTOCATALYTIC DEGRADATION OF PULP AND PAPER WASTEWATER USING DYE-SENSITISED TIO2

Abstract

With the growing number of industries there are large volumes of wastewater generated every day. Pulp and paper mills are highly polluting as they release effluents containing organic pollutants, and high levels of Biological Oxygen Demand (BOD) and Chemical Oxygen Demand (COD). Even though well-established processes exist to treat these effluents, there are only a few processes which are energy efficient. Conventional treatment methods are not effective for the degradation of toxic organic pollutants, hence other treatment techniques are necessary. One of the recent developments in this field is the Advanced Oxidation Process (AOP). Solar photocatalysis is a type of AOP which utilises UV light to activate semiconductor photocatalyst in order to produce highly reactive radical species. TiO2 is a widely used catalyst for this purpose, to oxidise or reduce the organic pollutants in industrial wastewater. However, photocatalysis using visible light has been receiving increased attention hence, modification of TiO2 is necessary for its enhanced response to visible light. There are many methods for modifying TiO2, such as doping and photo-sensitisation. This study focusses on the modification of TiO2 using the method of dye-sensitisation (photo-sensitisation) with the dyes rhodamine B and methylene blue. Solar photocatalytic experiments were carried out for the degradation of pulp and paper wastewater, at different conditions like varying catalyst loading (500mg, 600mg, 750mg and 1000mg of catalyst for 300ml of aqueous wastewater) and effluent concentration (20ml, 25ml, 30ml and 35ml of wastewater). Preliminary tests were done to determine the best conditions for photocatalytic degradation, and these were applied for final tests