Evaluation of copper-doped TiO2 film supported on glass and LDPE with the design of a pilot-scale solar photoreactor

Abstract

Abstract Synthesis of copper-doped TiO2 (Cu:TiO2) and undoped TiO2 were performed by the sol–gel method. These photocatalysts were characterized by Raman spectroscopy, XRD, and diffuse reflectance. The synthesized catalysts were fixed on glass by the Doctor Blade technique, and on low-density polyethylene (LDPE) by the liquid phase suspension method. The films were characterized by SEM-EDX. The use of doped and undoped photocatalysts fixed in two types of substrates was evaluated in a pilot scale photoreactor under solar radiation. The photoreactor consisted of a simple model designed based on the use of photocatalysts fixed on flat substrates. The adsorption, photodegradation and photolysis processes of methylene blue (MB) were evaluated separately in order to define the extent to which the photocatalyst degraded. The pilot scale system, with the method of fixing the catalyst on a glass substrate, degraded 72.8% of the dye in 6\xa0h, studied under the Langmuir Hinshelwood pseudo-first-order mathematical model with a constant of 0.0024\xa0min−1. With the method of fixing the catalyst on an LDPE substrate, it degraded 68.1% in 6\xa0h, following the same mathematical model, with a constant of 0.0021\xa0min−1.