Ti-Fe Binary Oxides Nanomaterial’s: Synthesis, Characterization, Adsorption and Photocatalytic Activity

Abstract

Water pollution is the most serious problems in the environmental fields. Organic solvent free impregnation method was used to synthesize titanium-iron oxides (TIOs) nanomaterial for the degradation of methyl orange dye. The physical properties of synthesized TIOs photocatalyst materials were characterized by XRD, SEM-EDX, BET, UV-Vis, and FT-IR analytical techniques. The appearance of iron oxide (α-Fe2O3) on SEM image, XRD, and EDX spectra; the redshift on UV-Vis spectra of TIO compared to titanium oxide (TiO2); and intensity reduction on FT-IR spectra proves the good impregnation of α-Fe2O3 in TiO2 lattice. The Langmuir and Dubinin-Radushkevich (D-RK) adsorption isotherm test in the dark show the domination of physical adsorption. Furthermore, the Flory-Huggins (FH) isotherm model that has = -11.40 kJ/mol confirm the spontaneity of the reaction. The passing of the linear Weber–Morris intra-particle adsorption-diffusion (IPD) plot through the origin and well-fitting of its coefficient of determination (R2) value relative to pseudo-first-order (PFO) indicates the domination of adsorption-diffusion mechanism. On the methyl orange (MO) degradation experiment, as the percentage of Fe2O3 increases from 4 to 12, its degradation efficiency decrease, i.e. TIO with 4 % calcined at 500 oC (TIO-4) has higher degradation efficiency with k values of 0.03025. The TIOs binary oxides containing a different percentage of α-Fe2O3 were also used for lead ion removal. During adsorption study pH of the solution, adsorbent dosage, time of contact, agitation speed, and concentration of adsorbate were optimized. From Langmuir, Freundlich, FG, D-RK, Temkin, FH adsorption isotherm models, relatively, the Langmuir isotherm model fits well. For adsorption-reaction kinetics model pseudo first order (PFO), pseudo-second order (PSO) and Elovich was tasted and intraparticle diffusion (IPD) for adsorption-diffusion kinetics models. Out of those the PSO fits well, this indicates that the mechanism of adsorption is under control of adsorption-reaction. The mean adsorption energy, reproducibility of the adsorbent was also conducted and all of those studies support the domination of physical adsorption mechanism. Furthermore, the spontaneity of the reaction test also accomplished