Porous ceramic foam loading titanium dioxide for photocatalytic degradation of the methyl orange solution

Purpose The purpose of this paper is to provide an investigation on a new kind of photocatalytic material, namely, the porous ceramic foam loading titanium dioxide, which can make an effective photocatalytic degradation of the methyl orange (MO) solution in the wastewater. Design/methodology/approach The natural zeolite powder has been used as the primary raw material to produce a sort of lightweight porous ceramic foam by impregnating polymer foam in slurry and then sintering. With the sol-gel method, a kind of open-cell reticular porous ceramic foam loading TiO2 film was obtained having a good photocatalytic action, and the resultant porous composite product presents the bulk density of 0.3 similar to 0.6 g/cm(3) to be able to float on water. Findings The MO could tend to be completely degraded in the solution with a certain concentration by the TiO2-loaded ceramic foam irradiated with ultraviolet light, and this composite foam was found to have high degradation efficiency for the MO solution in a wide range of pH. Originality/value This work presents a TiO2-loaded ceramic foam that can effectively photo-catalyze to degrade the MO in water, and the degradation efficiency were examined under different conditions of the MO solution with various pH values.