Environmental and Medical Applications of TiO2 Photocatalysts and Boron-doped Diamond Electrodes

Abstract

This paper summarized the author's recent studies about effective design of the systems for environmental and dental application of TiO 2 photocatalysts and boron-doped diamond (BDD) electrodes. The titanium mesh impregnated photocatalyst, TMiP™ has been fabricated as a novel photocatalytic filter. The high mechanical flexibility of TMiP allows us to design any geometry of modules by combination of UV-sources and the other technologies. In this paper, a practical air-cleaner using the TMiP-plasma synergistic reactor was fabricated and installed in a real-scale smoking room in the office. The amounts of the compounds in tobacco smoke were almost totally removed by the air-cleaner. On the other hands, the author also reported the possibilities of wastewater treatments by electrolysis with BDD electrodes. Based on these studies, a novel pinpoint ozone-water production unit for dental treatment using of BDD microelectrodes was developed. The unit showed almost the same sterilization ability as conventional 20 ppm of aqueous sodium hypochlorite treatment in in vitro assessment in the root-canal of bovine teeth. These results present several key solutions for practical applications of TiO 2 photocatalysis and BDD electrolysis.

A study of pollution removal in exhaust gases from animal quartering centers by combining photocatalysis with surface discharge plasma: From pilot to industrial scale

“…This pilot was better described in our previous study concerning an investigation with photocatalysis alone [16]. 6 The high voltage electrode was an array of grid wires placed at approximately 4 mm above the ground electrode. The grid had a thickness of 2 mm and the distance between adjacent wires was 20 mm.…”

“…It operates at ambient temperature and the by-products are usually CO2, H2O and nonharmful mineral acids [3][4][5]. Also, non-thermal plasma (NTP) is one of the most frequently used oxidation processes to control air pollution [6]. It consists of generating an electrical discharge that treats gas present between electrodes separated by a dielectric material.…”

TiO2-Impregnated Porous Silica Tube and Its Application for Compact Air- and Water-Purification Units

“…Thus, although extensive research has been conducted on photocatalytic air purification, the difficulty in creating a practical air purifier has rendered it ineffective for implementation in real-world industrial technology. We have reported various methods for the design and application of a TiO2 photocatalyst to maximize its photocatalytic abilities [1][2][3][4]. Recently, we have succeeded in the simple fabrication of novel one-end sealed porous TiO2-coated amorphous-silica (a-silica) tubes with large porosity using the outside vapor deposition (OVD) method [5].…”