Study on the controlled synthesis of Zr/TiO2/SBA-15 nanophotocatalyst and its photocatalytic performance for industrial dye reactive red X-3B

Nanophotocatalytic technology is one of the most promising technologies to treat industrial dyes in waste water. Nanosized TiO2 was loaded on mesoporous SBA-15 molecular sieve by chemical method to prepare TiO2/SBA-15 (TS1) in this work. Then, the transition metal element Zr was further deposited on the surface of TS1 to obtain Zr/TiO2/SBA-15 (ZTS) nanophotocatalysts. The crystal structure, morphology, element distribution and pore size distribution of several samples were studied using small-angle x-ray scattering, X-ray diffraction, Transmission electron microscope, Scanning electron microscope, X-ray photoelectron spectroscopy, N-2 adsorption-desorption, UV-Vis diffuse reflectance spectroscopy. The photocatalytic performance of the nanophotocatalyst was evaluated by photocatalyzing reactive red X-3B. The results show that the ZTS nanophotocatalyst has a good mesoporous structure, wherein, the TiO2 is an anatase phase. The specific surface of ZTS reaches 538.24 m(2)/g and its spectral absorption threshold reaches 425 nm. When the deposition amount of Zr is moderate the ZTS nanophotocatalyst shows quite high photocatalytic activity. In pH 2-10, the photocatalytic activity of ZTS exhibits change with variation of pH value. Under proper conditions, the degradation rate of reactive red X-3B reaches about 96% in ZTS photocatalytic system. Therefore, ZTS nanophotocatalyst has great potential in the treatment of dye wastewater.