Decorating TiO2 nanotubes with C3N4 for photocatalytic removal of organic pollutants and anaerobic digestion of sludge

Muzammil Anjum; Rajeev Kumar; S M Abdelbasir; M A Barakat

doi:10.21767/2471-9838-C4-018

Decorating TiO2 nanotubes with C3N4 for photocatalytic removal of organic pollutants and anaerobic digestion of sludge

World Congress on Materials Science & Engineering
August 23-25, 2018 Amsterdam, Netherlands

Muzammil Anjum, Rajeev Kumar, S M Abdelbasir, M A Barakat

King Abdulaziz University, Saudi Arabia Central Metallurgical R & D Institute (CMDRI), Egypt

Posters & Accepted Abstracts: Nano Res Appl

DOI: 10.21767/2471-9838-C4-018

Abstract

Herein, C3N4 and TiO2 nanotubes (NTs) were considered for the synthesis of visible light active C3N4/TiO2 NTs composites (with different melamine concentrations) by high temperature calcination method. The co-existence of C3N4 and TiO2 NT and visible light activity was confirmed by XRD, TEM, UV-visible and PL spectroscopy. The photocatalytic performance of TiO2 NT with 2% of melamine (precursor of C3N4), enhanced the degradation of 2-chlorophenol (k = 0.0176 min-1), where 96.6 % removal was achieved at optimum pH 7.0 and pollutant load of 30 mg/L. The application of C3N4/TiO2 NTs for solublization of rigid structure of sludge by photocatalysis released the soluble organics showing an improvement in sCOD production (4587 mg/L). Subsequently, anaerobic digestion of solubilized sludge has improved the methane production (723.4 mlkg-1 VS) by 1.37 and 1.6 times compared to that in anaerobic digestion with photolytic and raw sludge, thus showing a promising applicability for biogas production from sludge.