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Biochar Nanoparticles over TiO<sub>2</sub> Nanotube Arrays: A Green Co-Catalyst to Boost the Photocatalytic Degradation of Organic Pollutants
oleh: Marco Pinna, Gilberto Binda, Marco Altomare, Marcello Marelli, Carlo Dossi, Damiano Monticelli, Davide Spanu, Sandro Recchia
| Format: | Article |
|---|---|
| Diterbitkan: | MDPI AG 2021-08-01 |
Deskripsi
Biochar nanoparticles (BC NPs), produced by low temperature pyrolysis (350 °C) of microalgae (<i>Nannochloropsis</i> sp.) and nutshells, are proposed as low-cost and sustainable co-catalysts to promote the photocatalytic activity of TiO<sub>2</sub> nanotube (NT) arrays towards the degradation of methylene blue (MB) used as an organic pollutant model molecule. BC NPs (size < 25 nm) were obtained by treating bulk BC (i.e., biomass after pyrolysis) by sonication–centrifugation cycles in a water solution. The filtered BC NPs dispersion was deposited by simple drop-casting on the TiO<sub>2</sub> NT support. The BC loading was varied by performing multiple depositions. Photocatalytic experiments under UV light (365 nm) revealed that the decoration with BC NPs significantly improves the TiO<sub>2</sub> photoactivity. Such enhancement is mainly influenced by the amount of BC deposited; upon optimizing the BC deposition conditions, the rate of photocatalytic degradation of MB increases approximately three times with respect to bare TiO<sub>2</sub>, almost irrespective of the nature of the raw material. The greater photocatalytic activity of BC-TiO<sub>2</sub> can be attributed to the synergistic combination of reactant/product adsorption and catalytic degradation of the adsorbed organic pollutant, as well as an improved charge carrier separation and electron transfer.