Electrochemical Fabrication of Anodic Nanoporous Titania for Photocatalytic Degradation of Pollutants

Abstract

Photocatalytic dissociation of organic compounds and wastes is currently object of intense investigations for many reasons related to several advantages offered by a combination of chemical conversion with biological aspects, like the bactericidal action, which are irreplaceable in some situations. Moreover, photocatalysis is often easily controllable and does not generally require a continuous feed of reactants as in ordinary chemical abatement. In this work, we have investigated the photocatalytic dissociation of lactose present in milk whey under ultraviolet irradiation of a titanium dioxide substrate produced by anodic oxidation of metallic titanium. Two different forms of photocatalyst have been tested, namely a crude titania electrolytically obtained without any other further surface restructuring and a titania with surface modified by thermal annealing. The results proved the beneficial effects of a surface restructuring in terms of reaction yield. Such results can be interpreted as a preliminary test being a starting point for further surface treatments and process optimization.