MODIFICATION AND PERFORMANCES OF TiO 2 PHOTOCATALYST TOWARDS DEGRADATION OF PARAQUAT DICHLORIDE

Abstract

Titanium dioxide, TiO2 nanostructured has been synthesised by microemulsion technique under controlled hydrolysis of titanium butoxide, Ti(O(CH2)3)CH3 in hexadecyltrimethyl ammonium bromide, HTAB in the form of nanodroplets microemulsion. The physical and chemical properties of synthesised TiO2 have been determined by using SEM, XRD, BET and photocatalytic activity. In order to measure its catalytic performance, the synthesised TiO2is used as catalyst to decompose paraquat dichloride when exposed to UV bench lamp 302 nm 230 V~50 Hz. The result indicates that paraquat dichloride is degraded by 70% within 4 hours. The optimum catalytic properties enable to demonstrate TiO 2 nanostructured has good behaviour to photocatalytically degrade paraquat dichloride to relatively safe and tolerable compounds in the environment.