Influence of activated carbon upon titania on aqueous photocatalytic consecutive runs of phenol photodegradation

The photocatalytic degradation of phenol was performed at room temperature in aqueous suspended mixtures of TiO2 and activated carbon (AC). The main objective of the present work was to verify the potential of TiO2/AC system in the photocatalytic degradation of phenol and the principal intermediate products after performing three consecutive runs. The phenol disappearance follows a first-order kinetics. Therefore, the apparent first-order rate constant of phenol and total organic carbon photodegradations were selected to evaluate the photoefficiency of the system. From the present results it can be concluded that there is a synergistic effect between both solids which is determined by the numbers of photocatalytic runs. From a practical point of view, TiO2/AC is able to photomineralize phenol and total organic carbon for three and two, respectively, consecutive runs more efficiently than TiO2 alone.