Engineering Commons^™

A Comprehensive Study Of Cd(Ii) Removal From Aqueous Solution Via Adsorption And Solar Photocatalysis, Samindika Athapaththu

Electronic Thesis and Dissertation Repository

As the increase in industrial technology continue to progress, it results in the increase in heavy metal pollution, creating harmful effects on humans, plants, and animals. Since toxic metals do not degrade easily, they accumulate over time, posing greater danger to living organisms. Removal of these heavy metals is therefore, of great importance. Though many research studies successfully utilized UV photocatalysis with TiO₂ catalyst for the removal of Cd²⁺, none have performed the photoreduction of Cd²⁺ under visible light using eosin-y dye-sensitized TiO₂. The objective of the present research is to study the photocatalytic …

Self-Cleaning Polyurethane And Polyester Coatings, Yixing Tang

Electronic Thesis and Dissertation Repository

Self-cleaning titanium dioxide (TiO₂) based polyurethane and polyester nanocomposites were synthesized, characterized and tested in this thesis. A monomer functionalization method (“grafting from” polymerization) was used for synthesizing both novel nano-TiO₂ coordinated polyurethanes (nano-TiO₂-PU) and nano-TiO₂/polyester nanocomposites. This technique provides the advantage of directly attaching nanoparticles to the polymer backbone.

For polyurethane synthesis, two different methods (one-shot and pre-polymer) were explored. Using several characterization techniques, product from the pre-polymer method showed better mechanical properties; therefore, the pre-polymer method was chosen for subsequent nano-TiO₂-PU synthesis. In the nano-TiO₂-PU synthesis, the …

Modeling And Design Of Photocatalytic Reactors For Air Purification, Yangyang Zhang

USF Tampa Graduate Theses and Dissertations

Photocatalysis is a promising technique for the remediation of indoor air pollution. Photocatalysis utilizes semiconductor photocatalysts (such as TiO₂ or ZnO) and appropriate light to produce strong oxidizing agents (OH*) that are able to break down organic compounds and inactivate bacteria and viruses. The overall goal of the research is to develop an efficient photocatalytic reactor based on mass transfer for indoor air purification. This study has focused on the enhancement of the effectiveness of the photocatalytic process by the introduction of artificial roughness on the reactor catalyst surface. The major effect of artificial roughness elements on the catalytic …