Date of Graduation

5-2012

Document Type

Dissertation

Degree Name

Doctor of Philosophy in Engineering (PhD)

Degree Level

Graduate

Department

Chemical Engineering

Advisor/Mentor

Greg Thoma

Committee Member

Richard K. Ulrich

Second Committee Member

Ed Clausen

Third Committee Member

Greg Salamo

Fourth Committee Member

Andrew Wang

Keywords

Applied sciences, Advanced oxidation process, Photocatalysis, Photocatalytic reactors, Quartz tubes, Thin films, Titanium dioxide

Abstract

Photocatalysis process, as an environmental application is an advanced oxidation process with tremendous potential in the near future. Previously many researchers, have conducted photocatalysis in different reactor configuration using TiO2 slurry and thin film, using a UV light source, the constraints for these reactors are the need for the removal of TiO2 particles at the outlet stream in a slurry reactor and poor environment for the efficient use of TiO2 film using UV light, as the UV light penetration depth in water is about an inch.

Taking all this into consideration, we propose a design for reactor with efficient contact of the aqueous phase to the TiO2 film so that UV light doesn't need to penetrate through water, the TiO2 particles need not be removed from the outlet stream of water. The wok involves the deposition of TiO2 on quartz tubes with TiO2 and TiO2-Fe doped film by sol-gel and ESA (electrostatic self assembly) method and testing the performance of the coated film in proposed photocatalytic reactor in degradation of congo red, KI and Nitro phenol.

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