article · Scientific Reports
Treating methanol-based wastewater through photocatalytic oxidation can convert pollutants into formaldehyde using light energy. A hydrothermal process can fabricate composite photocatalysts comprising nitrogen-doped titanium dioxide and hematite nanocubes. The ratio of nitrogen-doped titania influences the photocatalytic properties of these materials during the oxidation process. Physical and chemical characterisation confirmed the structural details of the prepared materials. Testing on simulated methanol-containing wastewater revealed that nitrogen-doped titania demonstrates superior photooxidation performance compared to non-doped versions. Furthermore, coupling nitrogen-doped titania with hematite nanocubes noticeably accelerates the oxidation rate of methanol in aqueous solutions. A composite containing four weight percent of nitrogen-doped titania on hematite achieved the highest rate of formaldehyde production after three hours of light-driven treatment.
Methanol is a common industrial wastewater contaminant that poses environmental hazards. Developing affordable, light-driven catalysts that convert such pollutants into useful chemical products like formaldehyde offers a cleaner route for effluent treatment. Enhancing catalyst activity through accessible material combinations helps improve the chemical breakdown of hazardous liquid waste without requiring excessive thermochemical energy inputs.
This work could enable specialised wastewater treatment systems for chemical manufacturing plants generating methanol-rich effluent. Potential users include environmental remediation providers and industrial wastewater operators. Because the findings reflect early-stage laboratory experiments using simulated wastewater over three-hour periods, substantial further testing and scale-up will be required before the material can be considered for real-world industrial deployment.
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Abstract An important industrial process that often occurs on the surface of a heterogeneous catalyst using thermochemical or photochemical could help in the oxidation of methanol-based wastewater to formaldehyde. Titania-based photocatalysts have drawn a lot of interest from scientists because they are a reliable and affordable catalyst material for photocatalytic oxidation processes in the presence of light energy. In this study, a straight-forward hydrothermal method for producing n-TiO 2 @α-Fe 2 O 3 composite photocatalysts and hematite (α-Fe 2 O 3 ) nanocubes has been done. By adjusting the ratio of n-TiO 2 in the prepared composite photocatalysts, the enhancing influence of the nitrogen-doped titania on the photocatalytic characteristics of the prepared materials was investigated. The prepared materials were thoroughly characterized using common physiochemical methods, such as transmission electron microscope (TEM), scanning electron microscope (SEM), X-ray diffraction (XRD), energy dispersive X-ray (EDX), X-ray photoelectrons spectroscopy (XPS), physisorption (BET), and others, in order to learn more about the structure The results obtained showed that nitrogen-doped titania outperforms non-doped titania for methanol photooxidation. The addition of nitrogen-doped titania to their surfaces resulted in an even greater improvement in the photooxidation rates of the methanol coupled with hematite. The photooxidation of methanol in the aqueous solution to simulate its concentration in the wastewater has been occurred. After 3 h, the four weight percent of n-TiO 2 @α-Fe 2 O 3 photocatalyst showed the highest rate of HCHO production.
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DOI: 10.1038/s41598-023-31625-5
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