Biochar nanoparticles (BC NPs), produced by low temperature pyrolysis (350 °C) of mi-croalgae (Nannochloropsis sp.) and nutshells, are proposed as low-cost and sustainable co-catalysts to promote the photocatalytic activity of TiO2 nanotube (NT) arrays towards the degradation of methylene blue (MB) used as an organic pollutant model molecule. BC NPs (size < 25 nm) were obtained by treating bulk BC (i.e., biomass after pyrolysis) by sonication–centrifugation cycles in a water solution. The filtered BC NPs dispersion was deposited by simple drop-casting on the TiO2 NT support. The BC loading was varied by performing multiple depositions. Photocatalytic exper-iments under UV light (365 nm) revealed that the decoration with BC NPs significantly improves the TiO2 photoactivity. Such enhancement is mainly influenced by the amount of BC deposited; upon optimizing the BC deposition conditions, the rate of photocatalytic degradation of MB in-creases approximately three times with respect to bare TiO2, almost irrespective of the nature of the raw material. The greater photocatalytic activity of BC-TiO2 can be attributed to the synergistic combination of reactant/product adsorption and catalytic degradation of the adsorbed organic pollu-tant, as well as an improved charge carrier separation and electron transfer.

Biochar nanoparticles over tio2 nanotube arrays: A green co-catalyst to boost the photocatalytic degradation of organic pollutants

Pinna M.;Binda G.;Marelli M.;Dossi C.;Monticelli D.;Spanu D.;Recchia S.
2021-01-01

Abstract

Biochar nanoparticles (BC NPs), produced by low temperature pyrolysis (350 °C) of mi-croalgae (Nannochloropsis sp.) and nutshells, are proposed as low-cost and sustainable co-catalysts to promote the photocatalytic activity of TiO2 nanotube (NT) arrays towards the degradation of methylene blue (MB) used as an organic pollutant model molecule. BC NPs (size < 25 nm) were obtained by treating bulk BC (i.e., biomass after pyrolysis) by sonication–centrifugation cycles in a water solution. The filtered BC NPs dispersion was deposited by simple drop-casting on the TiO2 NT support. The BC loading was varied by performing multiple depositions. Photocatalytic exper-iments under UV light (365 nm) revealed that the decoration with BC NPs significantly improves the TiO2 photoactivity. Such enhancement is mainly influenced by the amount of BC deposited; upon optimizing the BC deposition conditions, the rate of photocatalytic degradation of MB in-creases approximately three times with respect to bare TiO2, almost irrespective of the nature of the raw material. The greater photocatalytic activity of BC-TiO2 can be attributed to the synergistic combination of reactant/product adsorption and catalytic degradation of the adsorbed organic pollu-tant, as well as an improved charge carrier separation and electron transfer.
2021
Biochar; Biomass; Carbon dots; Environmental remediation; Methylene blue; Microalgae; Nutshell; Organic pollutant; Photocatalysis; TiO2 nanotubes
Pinna, M.; Binda, G.; Altomare, M.; Marelli, M.; Dossi, C.; Monticelli, D.; Spanu, D.; Recchia, S.
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Utilizza questo identificativo per citare o creare un link a questo documento: https://hdl.handle.net/11383/2115424
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