Preparation of TiO₂/Bio-Composite Film by Sol-Gel Method in VOCs Photocatalytic Degradation Process

Abstract:

Biodegradable of polylactic acid (PLA), polybutylene adipate-co-terephthalate (PBAT) and polybutylene succinate (PBS), which were biodegradable aliphatic polyesters, composite films were contained with titanium dioxide (TiO₂) as a photocatalyst to evaluate the photocatalytic activity of bidegradable composite films for toluene removal. The synthesized TiO₂ was prepared by sol-gel method between titanium isopropoxide with acetic acid. To form the anatase structure, it was calcined at 500°C. TiO₂ were added to PLA/PBAT/PBS as a biopolymer blend at 0, 5 and 10 wt% .The TiO₂/Bio-composite films were fabricated via blown film technique to produce 40 μm films. Photocatalytic activity efficiency of TiO₂/Bio-composite films was performed in an annular closed system under UV light. Since the amount of TiO₂ affected the efficiency of the photocatalytic activity, this work was mainly concentrated on the effort to embed the high amount of TiO₂ in the biopolymer matrix. The developed photocatalyst was characterized by XRD, UV-Vis spectrophotometer and SEM. The SEM images revealed the high homogeneity of the deposition of TiO₂ on the biopolymer matrix. The X-ray diffraction (XRD) ensures the deposition of TiO₂ as crystalline anatase phase. In addition, the photocatalytic results shown that the toluene removal efficiencies increased with an increasing TiO₂ dosages at 0 wt%, 5 wt%, and 10 wt% , respectively. As aspects, the photocatalytic degradation results showed the highest tolune photocatalytic degradation efficiency of 52.0% at 10 wt% TiO₂ .