Effect of Operating Parameters on Photocatalytic Degradation of Methyl Orange Using Nanocrystalline Titanium Dioxide as Photocatalyst

The increasing organic compounds in waste waters has raised serious environmental problem. Various methods has been used to degrade or remove these contaminates physical, chemical, photochemical and microbiological process. Semiconductors (TiO2, ZnO, Fe2O3, etc.) act as photocatalysts in photochemical process have received a great deal of attention for their potential to utilize in waste water treatment.[1,2]Nanocrystalline TiO2 is the most widely used photocatalyst because of its good activity, chemical stability, commercial availability, and inexpensiveness. Titanium dioxide has tree crystalline phase which are anatase, rutile and brookite.[2,3]Several researches have been done on photocatalytic activity of nanocrystalline TiO2 and results indicate the anatase phase titanium dioxide shows more photocatalytic activity than the other phases.[4,5]In this research methyl orange has been selected as a water pollutant in textile industry to study the effect of several operating parameters on photocatalytic degradation of this dye by nano crystalline titanium dioxide