Degradation of phenol by TiO2-based heterogeneousphotocatalysts in presence of sunlight

This paper reports the results of a study on the titanium dioxide Anjatox®, which shows very interesting photocatalytic activity. Produced for commercial purposes as a white pigment, its features make it very interesting in the field of heterogeneous photocatalysis. The results obtained with this photocatalyst are compared with the behavior of the well-studied and widely used TiO2 Degussa P-25® under identical conditions. The degradation experiments showed that the photocatalytic efficiency of Anjatox® is comparatively close to that of Degussa P-25®. Both Anjatox® and Degussa P-25® show optimum degradation efficiency at a certain loading rate. The particle crystallite size and the BET surface area of the Anjatox® TiO2 are also compared with Degussa P-25®. Moreover the XRD study showed that TiO2 Anjatox® was more crystalline than the TiO2 Degussa P-25. The particle size histogram of TiO2 Anjatox® was found to be comparatively uniform like TiO2 Degussa P-25®. The use of TiO2 Anjatox® in heterogeneous photocatalysis is more desirable when high photocatalyst loading is required because of its low cost. The cost of Anjatox TiO2 was INR.110.00/Kg and the cost of Degussa P-25 was INR 1000/Kg (Jan 2006).