(569eo) Immobilization of TiO2 Nanowires on Glass Substrate for Wastewater Treatment.

The use of titanium dioxide (TiO₂) is well studied as a photocatalyst under UV irradiation, especially as an alternative method for wastewater treatment. However, the use of TiO₂ in suspension form mixed with the wastewater leads to problems of separating the photocatalyst from the treated water.

In this work, TiO₂ in nanowire form is immobilized upon a glass substrate using various polymers, with the aim of achieving effective wastewater treatment and avoiding a separation process for the treated water. The experiment is done using methyl orange as an indicator dye, where the degradation of the dye, and hence photocatalytic activity of the immobilized catalyst, can be quantified.

The immobilized photocatalyst on glass was studied using Brunauer-Emmett-Teller (BET) analysis, and scanning electron microscopy (SEM), to determine active sites and catalyst surface area. UV-Vis spectroscopy was used to measure methyl orange dye absorbance, to infer the degree of degradation. Preliminary results indicate that the immobilized TiO₂ performed similarly to a suspension of TiO₂ nanowires of equal amounts of photocatalyst under 365nm UV irradiation. In addition, catalyst activity for reused immobilized TiO₂ was studied, to determine catalyst durability.