Characterization and study of a single TiO_{2}-coated optical fiber reactor

Abstract

A TiO _{2} -coated optical fiber photoreactor was built and studied in order to optimize different parameters before the development of a multi-optical fiber reactor. The physico-chemical properties of the TiO _{2} film prepared by a sol-gel method on an optical fiber were first determined. A thickness of about 30 nm per layer and a roughness of 2 nm were estimated by ESEM and AFM, respectively. The refractive index of the TiO _{2} coating was determined by a simulation method. Then, the influences of the film thickness, coating length and coating volume on the light transmission within the fiber were investigated. The intensity of transmitted light was found to decrease exponentially as the volume of TiO _{2} increased. Afterward, the dependence of the photocatalytic degradation of hydroxybutanedioic acid on the incident light intensity, the TiO _{2} coating thickness and the coating volume was studied and modelized. The photocatalytic degradation was found to be stabilized above a TiO _{2} volume of 200 μ m ^{3} for a fiber of 1 mm and 100 μ m ^{3} for a fiber of 0.6 mm. Finally, a multi-fiber reactor was built and its degradation rate of hydroxybutanedioic acid was compared to that obtained in a single optical fiber reactor.

Review of material design and reactor engineering on TiO2 photocatalysis for CO2 reduction

“…The use of a single or bundle of optical fibres for the remote delivery of light to reactive sites of coated photocatalysts has been studied by several researchers for wastewater treatment and CO 2 photocatalysis [48,154,[215][216][217]. All researchers observed increased degradation and conversion rates when the optical fibres were simultaneously used as a support and light distributing guide.…”

Photocatalytic Reduction of Greenhouse Gas CO2 to Fuel

“…A single TiO 2 -coated fiber-optic reactor was designed by Danion et al [21]. The TiO 2 -coated optical fiber photoreactor was built and further studied in order to optimize different parameters before the development of a multi-optical fiber reactor [22][23][24][25]. Peill and Hoffmann demonstrated that TiO 2 -coated optical-fiber reactors had some inherent advantages over packed-bed reactors in photoreactions [26][27][28][29][30][31].…”

Treatment of recalcitrant organic pollutants in water by heterogeneous catalysis using a mixed material (TiO2-diatomite of algeria)

“…Diatomite powder is highly porous and can naturally act as a good adsorbent, particularly on slush. It was therefore mixed with slush for thirty minutes [5,6]. Finally, slush was calcined at 450˚C for 30 min.…”

“…Furthermore, devoted researchers have spent considerable efforts to accomplish extensive research, and the technology of immobilization of photocatalysic TiO 2 nano-particles seemed the most successful photocatalysis reported on solids since then [3,4]. Various techniques have been developed for the immobilization of TiO 2 on a solid substrate including dip coating suspension [5,6], spray coating and sol-gel. Moreover, different types of substrates were tested such as glass beads [7], glass tubes [8], fiber glass [9], quartz [10], stainless steel [11], aluminum [12], activated carbon [13], silica [14] and glass plates [15] and modified diatomite [16,17].…”