Novel Photocatalytic Membrane Reactor with TiO2 Nanotubes for Azo Dye Wastewater Treatment

Abstract

Novel photocatalytic membrane reactor (PMR) with TiO2 nanotubes (TNTs) has been designed and applied in azo dye wastewater treatment. Prepared by hydrothermal method, the TNTs with length of 30–80 nm and diameter of 10 nm had good photocatalytic activity. The result showed that the optimal pH value was 4.5 and catalyst loading of this reaction system was 0.5g/L. The decolorization rate of X-3B with application of TNTs was up to 94.6% after 75min of irradiation. In the combined process, the PES ultrafiltration membrane was adopted to separate and recover the nano catalysts for reuse. The retention rate of TNTs in PMR system reached 100%. All these showed that TNTs photocatalysis integrated with ultrafiltration was capable of removing X-3B dye effectively and simultaneous separating TNTs photocatalysts successfully.

Keywords

• TiO2 nanotubes(TNTs)
• photocatalysis
• ultrafiltration
• reactor
• azo dyentroduction