Electrochemical Fabrication of Anodic Nanoporous Titania for Photocatalytic Degradation of Pollutants

• Published in: Chemical engineering transactions 2016-05, Vol.47
• Main Authors: A. Shayganpour, A.P. Reverberi, M. Salerno, B. Fabiano
• Format: Article
• Language: English
• ISSN: 2283-9216
• DOI: 10.3303/CET1647051

Photocatalytic dissociation of organic compounds and wastes is currently object of intense investigations for many reasons related to several advantages offered by a combination of chemical conversion with biological aspects, like the bactericidal action, which are irreplaceable in some situations. Moreover, photocatalysis is often easily controllable and does not generally require a continuous feed of reactants as in ordinary chemical abatement. In this work, we have investigated the photocatalytic dissociation of lactose present in milk whey under ultraviolet irradiation of a titanium dioxide substrate produced by anodic oxidation of metallic titanium. Two different forms of photocatalyst have been tested, namely a crude titania electrolytically obtained without any other further surface restructuring and a titania with surface modified by thermal annealing. The results proved the beneficial effects of a surface restructuring in terms of reaction yield. Such results can be interpreted as a preliminary test being a starting point for further surface treatments and process optimization.