Photocatalytic membrane of a novel high surface area TiO 2 synthesized from titanium triisopropanolamine precursor

Abstract

Photocatalytic membrane was successfully prepared using an efficiently high surface area TiO 2 catalyst, dispersed into polyacrylonitrile matrix. The catalyst was directly synthesized using titanium triisopropanolamine as a precursor. The membranes were characterized using FT-IR, TGA, SEM and their photocatalytic performance tested, viz. stability, permeate flux and photocatalytic degradation of 4-NP. We find that polyacrylonitrile is an effective matrix, showing high stability and low permeate flux. The amount of TiO 2 loaded in the membrane was varied between 1, 3 and 5 wt% to explore the activity and stability of membranes in the photocatalytic reaction of 4-NP. As expected, the higher the loading of TiO 2 loaded, the higher the resulting catalytic activity. Copyright © 2006 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.