Effective degradation of methylene blue in aqueous solution using Pd-supported Cu-doped Ti-pillared montmorillonite catalyst

The effluents from the textile, paper and food industries contain organic dyes that are strongly colored and reveal harmful effect on living systems. In order to reduce water pollution, the degradation of dye into non toxic form is desirable. Methylene blue is one such organic dye, discharged from textile industries. In this work, the catalytic degradation of methylene blue was investigated using a montmorillonite supported trimetallic catalyst, prepared by supporting Pd on a Cu-doped Ti pillared montmorillonite. The catalyst exhibited excellent performance to reduce methylene blue, in the presence of NaBH4. The decolorization was appreciable and the results indicated that methylene blue could be successfully decolorized and degraded using the catalyst under room conditions. Almost complete degradation was achieved within 20 min. The results obtained were better than those reported for other catalysts. © 2018 Elsevier B.V.Spanish authors are grateful for financial support from the Spanish Ministry of Economy, Industry and Competitiveness (AEI/MINECO), and the European Regional Development Fund (ERDF) through grants MAT2013–47811–C2–R and MAT2016-78863-C2-2-R. BG thanks a pre-doctoral grant from Universidad de Salamanca