Graphitic carbon nitride (g-C3N4) based photocatalyst was synthesized and the photocatalytic performance was investigated for the removal of Eriochrome Black T (EBT) and Bromophenol Blue (BPB) under UV irradiation. The prepared materials were characterized by SEM-EDX, XRD, Raman, FTIR and DRS. Higher degradation efficiency for the same initial concentrations of EBT and BPB in presence of TiO2/g-C3N4 have been achieved within 160 min of irradiation. The kinetic study showed that the photodegradation of BPB by TiO2/g-C3N4 follows pseudo-first-order kinetics with an R2 value of 0.98. The addition of persulfate (PS) in BPB solution improved the degradation yield from 8.81% to 80.14% within 20 min of UV light irradiation. A Box-Behnken model was developed from three factors and Response surface methodology (RSM) was employed to identify the optimum conditions for the treatment of BPB solution by TiO2/g-C3N4. The experimental values of degradation of BPB agreed with predicted values obtained from central composite design (CCD) analysis with an R2 value of 0.9999. The scavenger study revealed that superoxide radical anion (O2•−) plays a key role (68.89% of contribution) followed by OH• and h+ with 22.40% and 15.55% of contribution, respectively. This study has obviously exhibited the potential of TiO2/g-C3N4 composite as a promising catalyst for photocatalytic purposes.
In this study, TiO2 nanospheres (TiO2-NS) were synthesized by the solvothermal method. Firstly, the synthesized nanomaterial was characterized by X-ray diffraction (XRD), Fourier Transformed Infrared (FTIR), scanning electron microscopy (SEM) and UV-Vis Diffuse Reflectance Spectroscopy (DRS). To study the photocatalytic degradation of Tartrazine (TTZ) and Naphthol Blue Black (NBB) in a binary mixture, the influence of some key parameters such as pH, pollutant concentration and catalyst dose was taken into account under visible and UV light. The results show a 100% degradation efficiency for TTZ after 150 min of UV irradiation and 57% under visible irradiation at 180 min. The kinetic study showed a good pseudo-first-order fit to the Langmuir–Hinshelwood model. Furthermore, in order to get closer to the real conditions of textile wastewater, the influence of the presence of salt on TiO2-NS’s photocatalytic performance was explored by employing NaCl as an inorganic ion. The optimum conditions provided by the Response Surface Methodology (RSM) were low concentrations of TTZ (2 ppm) and NBB (2.33 ppm) and negligible salt (NaCl) interference. The percentage of photodegradation was high at low pollutant and NaCl concentrations. However, this yield became very low as NaCl concentrations increased. The photocatalytic treatment leads to 31% and 53% of mineralization yield after 1 and 3 h of visible light irradiation. The synthesis of TiO2-NS provides new insights that will help to develop an efficient photocatalysts for the remediation of contaminated water.