Preparation and characterization of TiO2 incorporated 13X molecular sieves for photocatalytic removal of acetaminophen from aqueous solutions

Although stabilizing of nano-particles on porous media is a suitable methods in harnessing the agglomeration and inactivation of nano-particles, but still release of particles to the environment remains the most serious challenges facing toward photocatalysis process. Attachment of nanoparticles through ion exchange may be a promising method to solving these defects. In this study TiO2 was incorporated into the 13X molecular sieves by addition of the titanyl ion through an ion-exchange of ammonium-titanyl-oxalate as well as the decomposition of titanyl oxalate salt, which remained on the zeolite through the impregnation and calcination process. A part of TiO2 on the zeolite was also bound through a TiOSi bond. The investigation of TiO2-HX catalytic potential showed that neutral pH and 500 mg/L catalyst were the optimal conditions for acetaminophen removal (1 mg/L) in the UV/TiO2-HX process. The maximum removal efficiency of 95.45% ± 0.8 was attained after 75 min contact time. The acetaminophen degradation during the UV/TiO2-HX process was followed a pseudo first order kinetic model with rate constants (Kapp) of 0.8676 h−1. Under the optimum conditions, maximum synergistic efficiency of 60.07% was acquired. The experimental data showed that the UV/TiO2-HX process is effective in acetaminophen removal from aqueous solutions.