Degradation and adsorption of rhodamine B and phenol on TiO2/MCM-41

TiO2/MCM-41 composites with various titania content were prepared by loading titania into the mesopores of MCM-41 molecular sieves by sol-gel method, and were used as photocatalysts to degrade Rhodamine B (RhB) and phenol. The efficiency of organic contaminants removal was increased significantly compared with pure TiO2. Ti/Si ratio, namely, the content of TiO2 was determined by ICP-AES method. TiO2/MCM-41 composites were characterized by X-ray diffraction, UV-Vis absorption spectroscopy and N-2 adsorption techniques. Experimental results demonstrated that most of the RhB was adsorbed instead of being degradated by TiO2/MCM-41 due to the large specific surface area of MCM-41, while most of phenol was degradated. It turned out that the TiO2/MCM-41 with the highest Ti/Si ratio of 0.8220 (wt) had the highest catalytic activity.