Fabrication of New TiO2 Photocatalyst for Removing Organic Dyes and Hazardous VOCs in Air Purifier System

We synthesized an amorphous Ti-based hydroperoxo complex (ATPC) using a facile method involvingonly titanium hydride (TiH2) and H2O2 under mild conditions. We chose TiH2 as the precursor because it has more reactive sites than metal oxides such as TiO2. Qualitative and quantitative optical measurements showed that our synthesized ATPC photocatalysts contained many hydroperoxo groups and various oxidation states of Ti (Ti2+, Ti3+, and Ti4+). Thus, the synthesized ATPC exhibits excellent photocatalytic properties with very fast rates of organic decolorization compared to other conventional visiblelight catalysts. The presence of many hydroperoxo complexes increases the formation of active radicals, which can degrade VOCs such as acetaldehyde in a gas phase. To test the application of the synthesized ATPC, we fabricated a filter system in an air purifier using ATPC coating layers and successfully removed the VOCs. We also proposed a possible photocatalytic oxidation mechanism with ATPC based on this study. It is important to conduct application tests as well as commercialization in photocatalytic experiments.

Automated summary

We synthesized an amorphous Ti-based hydroperoxo complex (ATPC) using a simple method with titanium hydride (TiH2) and H2O2. The synthesized ATPC exhibited excellent photocatalytic properties with fast rates of organic decolorization. The presence of hydroperoxo complexes increased the formation of active radicals, which effectively degraded VOCs in a gas phase. The application of ATPC in an air purifier successfully removed VOCs, and a possible photocatalytic oxidation mechanism was proposed.