A Comparison Study of New TiO2/PEG Immobilized Techniques Under Normal and Visible Light Irradiations

Abstract

Novel photocatalysts of TiO2 and TiO2/PEG were immobilized using new technique which is double sided adhesive tape (DSAT) as a thin layer binder onto glass plate. The photocatalytic activity study of immobilized/TiO2 and immobilized/TiO2/PEG were carried out by irradiating of 36 mg L-1 MB dye in the presence of normal and visible light with rate of decolourization was estimated from aliquot concentration spectrophotometrically. The high photocatalytic activity from immobilized/TiO2/PEG was observed with the rate constants of ca 0.06 and 0.02 min-1 under normal and visible light irradiation respectively. An active photocatalytic activity was observed for immobilized/TiO2/PEG sample while no photocatalytic activity detected under immobilized/TiO2. The high photoactivity was also detected under normal light for immobilized/TiO2/PEG sample. This might be due to the presence of electron conjugate in PEG that acted as electron donor for TiO2 thus increase the photocatalysis process. Moreover, this electron donor is reported to be able to become active under low energy visible light hence the immobilized/TiO2/PEG can perfomed its photoactivity under visible light irradiation.