Removal of Azo Dye Mixture in Aqueous Solution by Photocatalysis over Mesoporous-Assembled TiO2 Nanocrystal
An abundant class of synthetically colored organic compounds is azo dye, which is characterized by the presence of one or more azo groups (-N=N-) linked between aromatic rings. The release of this coloring agent to the environment causes a severe wastewater problem. Photocatalysis is an efficient technique for removing these dye pollutants because of its several advantages. The most widely used semiconductor photocatalyst is titanium dioxide (TiO2) due to its comparatively high photocatalytic efficiency. In this work, several operational parameters affecting the photocatalytic degradation of mixtures of two azo dyes—Acid Yellow 23 (AY) with 1 azo group and Acid Black 1 (AB) with 2 azo groups—including types of dye, initial dye concentration, photocatalyst dosage, dissolved oxygen level, initial solution pH, and water hardness concentration, were investigated by using a mesoporous-assembled TiO2 nanocrystal photocatalyst. The experimental results showed that for the mixture of AY and AB, the λmax values of both dyes from UV-visible spectroscopy do not change upon their mixing at different irradiation times during the course of photocatalytic degradation. At AY and AB concentrations of 5 and 2.5 mg/l, the optimum conditions were a photocatalyst dosage of 10 g/l, a dissolved oxygen level of 37.7 mg/l, and an initial solution pH of 4.5, providing the highest degradation rate of azo dyes. Moreover, water hardness negatively affected the degradation performance.
