Titanium dioxide immobilization in recycled aluminum net for degradation of textile dye by Heterogeneous Photocatalysis through neural networks

In this work, recycled aluminum nets were used as TiO2 support for the treatment of the textile dye Remazol golden yellow (RGY 150). The immobilization of 100 mg of TiO2 was accomplished after aluminum net calcination. The following experiments were carried out in a photocatalytic bench reactor: preliminary tests, a 2(3) factorial experimental design with the best system and the degradation kinetic of TiO2 supported systems. Characteristic peaks of aluminum and TiO2 (anatase and rutile) were observed by XRD and the catalyst film formation was verified by SEM. The system UV/H2O2/TiO2 performed higher efficiency, with 99% of dye degradation in 50 minutes, followed by the system UV/H2O2/TiO2sp with 93% of dye degradation. Whereas the supported catalyst presents execution advantages and high degradation rates, the factorial design was realized for this system, achieving best degradation (100% degradation in 35 minutes). It was obtained k = 0.114 min(-1) and R-2 = 0.994 in a pseudo-first order model adjustment. The use of artificial neural network was proven to be efficient to predict the degradation of a textile dye with an absolute error of 0.0181. After treatment, there was a decrease of dye toxicity.