An-Najah Staff

Photocatalytic degredation of organic contaminants in water and air hasgreat deal of attention. TiO2 is the most widely used semiconductor photocatalyst due to its high photo-stability, non-toxic nature, high oxidizing potential and its water insolubility under different conditions. In this research TiO2 nano-particles were prepared from TiCl3. Then they were sensitized by anthocyanin natural dye extracted from Hibiscus (Karkade). The TiO2/dye system was used as photocatalyst to degrade water contaminant such as phenazopyridine and E-coli bacteria under spot halogen lamp irradiation. TiO2 was characterized by measuring the XRD, SEM, Photoluminescence, UV-visible spectra. Effects of different parameters on catalyst efficiency were studied such as pH effect, contaminant concentration, catalyst concentration and temperature. The efficiency of catalyst increased with increasing the concentration of contaminants, the concentration of catalyst and pH value. In this research the photodegradtion reaction was slightly temperature dependent. Details of phenazopyridine degradation study are presented here, together with a brief screening investigation of bacteria degradation.