Detoxification of Carcinogenic Dyes by Noble Metal (Ag, Au, Pt) Impregnated Titania Photocatalysts

Textile industries produce large quantities of waste water which is notoriously known to contain strong colour, suspended solids and COD. Although several treatment processes, such as filtration, coagulation, oxidation, ozonation, reverse osmosis, etc., have been practiced for many decades, they all have inherent limita-tions. They transfer the harmful pollutants from one phase to another and do not address detoxification. Semiconductor photocatalysis is a promising technique for photodegradation of hazardous chemicals found in waste waters. Among various semiconductors, TiO 2 has been studied widely. However, the main drawbacks associated with TiO 2 are (i) large band gap (Eg > 3.2 eV) (only UV active) and (ii) recombination of excitons. Dye sensitisation, coupling of semiconductors, and transitional metal doping are some of the methods reported to shift its optical response to visible region. Herein, nanoparticles of different noble metals such as Ag, Au and Pt were deposited on synthesised TiO 2 , characterized by XRD, TEM, FT-IR, BET, UV-Vis and AAS and were subjected to the degradation of some textile dyes namely Tartrazine (TAZ), Reactive Yellow-17 (RY-17) and Reactive Black-5 (RB-5) under both UV and visible irradiations. The reaction conditions such as catalyst concentration, dye concentration, pH, irradiation time, light intensity, and additives were optimized for complete decolourisation and discussed.