Enhancement in Rate of Photocatalysis Upon Catalyst Recycling

• Published in: Scientific reports Vol. 6; no. 1; p. 35075
• Main Authors: Sorathiya, Kalpesh, Mishra, Biswajit, Kalarikkal, Abhishek, Reddy, Kasala Prabhakar, Gopinath, Chinnakonda S., Khushalani, Deepa
• Format: Journal Article
• Language: English
• Published: London Nature Publishing Group UK 12.10.2016; Nature Publishing Group
• Subjects: 639/301/299/890; 639/301/357/551; Catalysis; Catalysts; Efficiency; Grain boundaries; Humanities and Social Sciences; Illumination; Light; Morphology; multidisciplinary; Nanoparticles; Phenols; Photocatalysis; Pollutants; Rhodamine; Science; Titanium dioxide; Tungsten
• ISSN: 2045-2322; 2045-2322
• DOI: 10.1038/srep35075

Recyclability is an important aspect for heterogeneous photo-catalysts. Ease of recovery and stability of the photo-catalyst in terms of efficiency over the number of cycles are highly desired and in fact it is ideal if the efficiency is constant and it should not decrease marginally with each cycle. Presented here is a seminal observation in which the photocatalytic activity is shown to improve with increasing number of catalytic cycles (it is 1.7 times better after the 1 st cycle and 3.1 times better after the 2 nd cycle). Specifically, nanorods of pure TiO 2 and TiO 2 doped with controlled amount of tungsten have been used to degrade two model pollutants: Phenol and Rhodamine B under exclusive visible light illumination. It was found that, in case of 1 mol.% W incorporation, rate of photocatalysis and also the range of visible light absorption of the photocatalyst increased after the photocatalysis as compared to before photocatalysis. This aspect is unique for doped TiO 2 and hence provides an intriguing way to mitigate low photoactivity.