• Nanomaterials
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• v.12 no.17
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• pp.2945-2957
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• 2022

In this work, the growth of extended tri-s-triazine units (melem units) on g-C₃N₄ (CN) by hydrothermal treatment and its effect on the photodegradation efficiency of tetracycline hydrochloride (TC) is investigated. The CN-180-x and CN-200-6 samples were prepared using different hydrolysis times and temperatures, and they were characterized by multiple physicochemical techniques. In addition, their photodegradation performance was evaluated under visible light irradiation. Compared to the CN, CN-180-6 possesses remarkable photocatalytic degradation efficiency at 97.17% towards TC removal in an aqueous solution. The high visible-light-induced photo-reactivity of CN-180-6 directly correlates to charge transfer efficiency, numerous structural defects with a high specific surface area (75.0 m² g^-1), and sufficient O-functional groups over g-C₃N₄. However, hydrothermal treatment at a higher temperature or during a longer time additionally induces the growth of extended melem units on the surface of g-C₃N₄, resulting in the inhibition of the charge transfer. In addition, the superoxide radical is proven to be generated from photoexcited reaction and plays a key role in the TC degradation.

• Journal of Welding and Joining
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• v.24 no.5
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• pp.57-61
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• 2006

For the production of functional $TiO_2$-biodegradable plastic (polybutylene succinate:PBS) composite material with photocayalytic activity, we attempted to prepare $TiO_2$ coatings on PBS substrate by HVOF and plasma spraying techniques under various conditions. The microstructures of coatings were characterized with SEM and XRD analysis, and the photocatalytic efficiency of coatings was evaluated by the photo degradation of gaseous acetaldehyde. The effects of primary particle size and spraying parameters on the formation behavior, photocatalytic performance of the coatings have been investigated. The results indicated that for both the HVOF sprayed $P_{200}$ and $P_{30}$ coatings, the high anatase ratio of 100% can be achieved regardless of fuel gas pressure. On the other hand, the HVOF sprayed $P_7$ coating exhibited a largely decreased anatase ratio (from 100% to 49.1%) with increasing the fuel gas pressure, which may be attributed to much higher susceptibility of heat for 7 nm agglomerated powder. HVOF sprayed $P_{200}$ and $P_{30}$ coatings show better performance as compared to that of plasma sprayed $P_{200}$ coatings owing to the higher anatase ratio. However, the HVOF sprayed $P_7$ coatings did not show the photocatalytic activity, which may result from the extremely small reaction surface area to the photocatalytic activity and low anatase ratio.

• Journal of Korean Society of Water and Wastewater
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• v.9 no.4
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• pp.87-96
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• 1995

The Electron/Hole Pair is generated when the activation energy produced by ultraviolet ray illuminates to the semiconductor and OH- ion produced by water photocleavage reacts with positive Hole. As a results, OH radical acting as strong oxidant is generated and then Photocatalytic oxidation reaction occurs. The photocatalytic oxidation can oxidate the non-degradable and hazardous organic substances such as pesticides and aromatic materials easier, safer and shorter than conventional water treatment process. So in this study, many factors influencing the oxidation of chlorophenols, such as inorganic electrolytes addition, change of oxygen and nitrogen atmosphere, temperature, pH, oxygen concentration, chlorophenol concentration, were throughly examined. According to the experiments observations, it is founded that the rate of chlorophenol oxidation follows a first-order reaction and the modified Langmuir-Hinshelwood relationship. And the photocatalytic oxidation occurs only when activation energy acting as Electron/Hole generation, oxygen acting as electron acceptor to prevent Electron/Hole recombination, $TiO_2$ powder acting as photocatalyst are present. The effects of variation of dissolved oxygen concentration, temperature and inorganic electrolytes concentration on 2-chlorophenol oxidation are negligible. And the lower the organic concentration, the higher the oxidation efficiency becomes. Therefore, the photocatalytic oxidation is much effective to oxidation of hazardous substances at very low concentration. The oxidation is effective in the range of 0.1 g/L-10 g/L of $TiO_2$. Finally when the ultra-violet ray is illuminated to $TiO_2$, the surface characteristics of $TiO_2$ change and Adsorption/Desorption reaction on $TiO_2$ surface occurs.

• Journal of Environmental Science International
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• v.22 no.10
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• pp.1263-1271
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• 2013

Graphene oxide (GO)-titania composites have emerged as an attractive heterogeneous photocatalyst that can enhance the photocatalytic activity of $TiO_2$ nanoparticles owing to their potential interaction of electronic and adsorption natures. Accordingly, $TiO_2$-GO mixtures were synthesized in this study using a simple chemical mixing process, and their heterogeneous photocatalytic activities were investigated to determine the degradation of airborne organic pollutants (benzene, ethyl benzene, and o-xylene (BEX)) under different operational conditions. The Fourier transform infrared spectroscopy results demonstrated the presence of GO for the $TiO_2$-GO composites. The average efficiencies of the $TiO_2$-GO mixtures for the decomposition of each component of BEX determined during the 3-h photocatalytic processes were 26%, 92%, and 96%, respectively, whereas the average efficiencies of the unmodified $TiO_2$ powder were 3%, 8%, and 10%, respectively. Furthermore, the degradation efficiency of the unmodified $TiO_2$ powder for all target compounds decreased during the 3-h photocatalytic processes, suggesting a potential deactivation even during such a short time period. Two operational conditions (air flow entering into the air-cleaning devices and the indoor pollution levels) were found to be important factors for the photocatalytic decomposition of BEX molecules. Taken together, these results show that a $TiO_2$-GO mixture can be applied effectively for the purification of airborne organic pollutants when the operating conditions are optimized.

• Journal of Korean Society of Water and Wastewater
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• v.29 no.1
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• pp.33-38
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• 2015

In this study, flat-type photocatalytic reaction system is applied to reduce toxic hexavalent chromium (Cr(VI)) to trivalent chromium (Cr(III)) in aqueous solution under UV irradiation. To overcome the limitation of conventional photocatalysis, a novel approach toward photocatalytic system for reduction of hexavalent chromium including nanotubular $TiO_2$ (NTT) on two kinds of titanium substrates (foil and mesh) were established. In addition, modified Ti substrates were prepared by bending treatment to increase reaction efficiency of Cr(VI) in the flat-type photocatalytic reactor. For the fabrication of NTT on Ti substrates, Ti foil and mesh was anodized with mixed electrolytes ($NH_4F-H_2O-C_2H_6O_2$) and then annealed in ambient oxygen. The prepared NTT arrays were uniformly grown on two Ti substrates and surface property measurements were performed through SEM and XRD. Hydraulic retention time(HRT) and substrate type were significantly affected the Cr(VI) reduction. Hence, the photocatalytic Cr(VI) reduction was observed to be highest up to 95% at bended(modified) Ti mesh and lowest HRT. Especially, Ti mesh was more effective as NTT substrate in this research.

• Korean Journal of Materials Research
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• v.22 no.10
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• pp.504-507
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• 2012

Synthesis of RGO (reduced graphene oxide)-CdS composite material was performed through CBD (chemical bath deposition) method in which graphene oxide served as the support and Cadmium Sulfate Hydrate as the starting material. Graphene-based semiconductor photocatalysts have attracted extensive attention due to their usefulness for environmental and energy applications. The band gap (2.4 eV) of CdS corresponds well with the spectrum of sunlight because the crystalline phase, size, morphology, specic surface area and defects, etc., of CdS can affect its photocatalytic activity. The specific surface structure (morphology) of the photocatalyst can be effective for the suppression of recombination between photogenerated electrons and holes. Graphene (GN) has unique properties such as a high value of Young's modulus, large theoretical specific surface area, excellent thermal conductivity, high mobility of charge carriers, and good optical transmittance. These excellent properties make GN an ideal building block in nanocomposites. It can act as an excellent electron-acceptor/transport material. Therefore, the morphology, structural characterization and crystal structure were observed using various analytical tools, such as X-ray diffraction, scanning electron microscopy, transmission electron microscopy, and Raman spectroscopy. From this analysis, it is shown that CdS particles were well dispersed uniformly in the RGO sheet. Furthermore, the photocatalytic property of the resulting RGO-CdS composite is also discussed in relation to environmental applications such as the photocatalytic degradation of pollutants. It was found that the prepared RGO-CdS nanocomposites exhibited enhanced photocatalytic activity as compared with that of CdS nanoparticles. Therefore, better efficiency of photodegradation was found for water purification applications using RGO-CdS composite.

• Journal of Surface Science and Engineering
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• v.54 no.6
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• pp.340-347
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• 2021

Among various metal oxide semiconductors, ZnO has an excellent electrical, optical properties with a wide bandgap of 3.3 eV. It can be applied as a photocatalytic material due to its high absorption rate along with physical and chemical stability to UV light. In addition, it is important to control the morphology of ZnO because the size and shape of the ZnO make difference in physical properties. In this paper, we demonstrate synthesis of size-controlled ZnO tetrapods using an atmospheric pressure plasma system. A micro-sized Zn spherical powder was continuously introduced in the plume of the atmospheric plasma jet ignited with mixture of oxygen and nitrogen. The effect of plasma power and collection sites on ZnO nanostructure was investigated. After the plasma discharge for 10 min, the produced materials deposited inside the 60-cm-long quartz tube were obtained with respect to the distance from the plume. According to the SEM analysis, all the synthesized nanoparticles were found to be ZnO tetrapods ranging from 100 to 600-nm-diameter depending on both applied power and collection site. The photocatalytic efficiency was evaluated by color change of methylene blue solution using UV-Vis spectroscopy. The photocatalytic activity increased with the increase of (101) and (100) plane in ZnO tetrapods, which is caused by enhanced chemical effects of plasma process.

• Nano
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• v.13 no.11
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• pp.1850127.1-1850127.13
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• 2018

Bi metal deposited on $Bi_2MoO_6$ composite photocatalysts have been successfully synthesized via a simple reduction method at room temperature with using $NaBH_4$ as the reducing agent. The photocatalytic activity of the composite was evaluated by degradation of rhodamine B (RhB) and bisphenol A (BPA) solution under visible light. The rate constant of $Bi/Bi_2MoO_6$ composite to RhB is 10.8 times that of $Bi_2MoO_6$, and the degradation rate constant of BPA is 6.9 times of that of $Bi_2MoO_6$. Nitrogen absorption-desorption isotherm proved that the increase of specific surface area is one of the reasons for the improvement of photocatalytic degradation activity of $Bi/Bi_2MoO_6$ composites. The higher charge transfer efficiency of $Bi/Bi_2MoO_6$ is found through the characterization of the photocurrent and impedance, which are attributed to the surface plasmon resonance (SPR) effect produced by the introduction of the metal Bi monomer in the composite. Free radical capture experiments proved that cavitation is the main active species. Based on the above conclusions, a possible mechanism of photocatalytic degradation is proposed.

• Applied Chemistry for Engineering
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• v.22 no.1
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• pp.61-66
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• 2011

In this study, we prepared $TiO_2$ with the sol-gel method and controlled physico-chemical properties by a simple heat treatment. All materials were applied to photocatalytic decomposition of methylene blue and the material treated at 473 K showed the highest photocatalytic efficiency. The high performance resulted from a high adsorption amount of methylene blue due to a high surface area of $229.8m^2/g$. However, the material treated at 873 K, despite of a low surface area of $23.8m^2/g$ and a large particle size of 28.38 nm, exhibits a good photocatalytic performance due to the effect of mixed cyrstalline rutile and anatase phases formed by the high heat treatment temperature.

• Membrane Journal
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• v.32 no.3
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• pp.181-190
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• 2022

Membrane separation provides various advantages including cost effectiveness and high efficiency over traditional wastewater treatment methods such as flocculation and adsorption. However, the effectiveness of membrane separation greatly declines due to membrane fouling, where pollutants are accumulated on the membrane surface. Among different groups of membranes, ceramic membranes can provide good antifouling properties due to its hydrophilicity and chemical stability. In addition, composite membranes such as graphene oxide modified membranes can help prevent membrane fouling. Recently, hybrid photocatalytic membranes have been proposed as a solution to prevent membrane fouling and provide synergetic effects. Membrane separation can solve the disadvantages of photocatalytic oxidation such as low reutilization rate, while photocatalytic oxidation can help reduce membrane fouling.