TiO2 Photocatalytic Removal of Cu (II) from Water using Different Light Sources

• Main Author: Yeo, Hsiu Chin
• Format: Final Year Project Report
• Language: English
• Published: Universiti Malaysia Sarawak, (UNIMAS) 2015
• Subjects: GE Environmental Sciences
• Online Access: http://ir.unimas.my/id/eprint/10534/2/Hsiu%20%28fulltext%29.pdf; http://ir.unimas.my/id/eprint/10534/

Increase of heavy metal pollution due to the rapid development of industrial activities have caused harmful effects to humans, plants and animals. The accumulation of these toxic heavy metals due to its low degradability impose threats to living organisms. Thus, removal of heavy metals from water is crucial. In this study, titanium dioxide (TiO2) photocatalysis was investigated as a possible option to remove copper (Cu) from aqueous solution. The aim of this study was to investigate the effect of initial metal concentrations (20, 40 and 60 mg/L), concentration of TiO2 (0.1-1.0 g/L) and solution pH (pH 3-9) on the removal efficiency of Cu. Different light sources namely ultraviolet (UV), light emitting diode (LED) and sunlight were investigated. The results depicted that the optimum initial metal concentrations for the Cu removal were 40 mg/L and 60 mg/L for UV and LED, respectively. Results also indicated that the Cu removal increases with the increasing TiO2 concentration for both UV and LED irradiation. The optimum Cu removal was obtained using 1.0 g/L of TiO2 concentration at pH 7 for both UV (61%) and LED (64%), mainly as a result of precipitation. Kinetic studies indicated that pseudo second-order kinetic model best described the Cu adsorption rate. One-Way Analysis of Variance (ANOVA) analysis indicated that removal of Cu via UV light is significantly different (p<0.05) than that of LED light. It can be implied that the efficiency of sunlight is comparable to UV and LED lights in removing Cu from aqueous solution.