Immobilization of the Fe2O3/TiO2 photocatalyst on carbon fiber cloth for the degradation of a textile dye under visible light irradiation

Abstract

This work focuses on the photocatalytic activity of immobilized Fe2O3/ TiO2 on carbon fiber cloth as a chemically stable and flexible supporting material toward degradation of textile dye [Basic Blue 41 (BB 41)] under visible light. The photocatalysts were characterized by SEM, XRD, diffuse reflectance UV–Vis, photoluminescence spectroscopy, and FTIR. The photocatalytic activities of immobilized Fe2O3/ TiO2 samples with different contents of Fe2O3 (5–25 wt%) were studied for degradation of BB 41 solution (100 ml, 10 ppm) under visible light irradiation for 240 min. The optimum amount of Fe2O3 was found to be 20 wt% from experimental results that indicated 97.54% photoactivity. In order to further investigate the photocatalytic degradation, chemical oxygen demand experiments were carried out that showed the degradation of dye solution was about 84% utilizing the optimum photocatalyst. The reusability of the optimum photocatalyst was studied in 7 reaction cycles (28 h) which revealed only 13% loss of photoactivity.