Degradation of textile wastewater using ultra-small Β-Feooh/Tio2 heterojunction structure as a visible light photocatalyst

Thesis (MTech (Chemical Engineering))--Cape Peninsula University of Technology, 2016.The worldwide high demand for drinking water has led to the development of numerous advanced wastewater treatment processes. Photocatalysis has recently become an alternative and attractive technique for green energy production and environmental remediation. It is also a wastewater treatment technique which is considered reliable and is expected to provide a sustainable solution to the scarcity of clean water. In particular, heterogeneous photocatalysts based on TiO2 nanoparticles and sunlight have been proposed as a powerful technique for degradation and mineralisation of persistent organic pollutants (POP`s). Although this method seems promising, some critical challenges are still to be addressed: namely, low photoefficiencies, faster electron and hole (−⁄ℎ+) pair recombination, utilisation of UV light and catalyst removal after treatment of pollutants