Acrylate-based Polymerizable Sol-Gel Synthesis of Magnetically Recoverable TiO2 Supported Fe3O4 for Cr(VI) Photoreduction in Aerobic Atmosphere

TiO2 synthesized by polymerizable sol gel approach is used to demonstrate the photoreduction of Cr(VI) in aqueous medium. Fe3O4 is chosen as the magnetically recoverable support, onto which, 10, 20, 30 and 50% of TiO2 have been dispersed following the polymerizable sol gel approach. The synthesized materials are characterized using XRD, SEM, XPS, Raman spectroscopy, diffuse reflectance spectroscopy and BET surface area measurement. Different hole-scavengers (oxalic acid, ammonium oxalate and ethanol) and an electron scavenger (potassium periodate) have been studied to compare the efficiency of Cr(VI) photoreduction in nitrogen as well as air atmosphere. With 5 mM oxalic acid as the hole-scavenger, the TiO2/Fe3O4 materials have demonstrated superior activity to the nonsupported bulk TiO2 toward Cr(VI) photoreduction in aerobic atmosphere. Particularly, 30% TiO2/Fe3O4 has shown the highest Cr(VI) photoreduction rate among the lot. The 30% TiO2/Fe3O4 catalyst has also demonstrated good recoverability as well as recyclability.