|
Air pollution is one of the problems that has attracted specific attention since the start of the 21st century. Volatile organic compounds (VOCs), originating from furniture or building materials amongst others, are an important class of pollutants and the concentration indoors are often several times higher than outdoors. The main goal is the complete mineralization of VOCs based on a photocatalytic oxidation process which can be carried out under mild reaction conditions (low pressure and temperature). The methodology that will be used is to transfer the VOCs from the gas phase to the aqueous phase by means of a scrubber to ensure an efficient photocatalytic degradation under UV light. The light efficiency will be optimized based on two different methods. The first method is via modification of standard TiO2 with plasmonic silver nanostructures. These nanostructures display surface plasmon resonance (SPR) in the UV part of the spectrum, which entails a significant electric near-field enhancement. The build-up of these intense local electric fields allows an efficient concentration of the incident photon energy in small volumes near the nanostructures. Since the rate of electron-hole pair formation is proportional to the intensity of the electric field, a drastic increase in charge carrier formation occurs. In order for this plasmonic "lens effect" to work, an energy match between the bandgap energy of the semiconductor and the energy associated with the SPR is required, which is the case for silver nanostructures. A second method to increase the UV light efficiency is by means of an innovative reactor design. A scrubber will be used to transfer the contaminated air flow to the aqueous phase leading to an enrichment of the VOCs in the aqueous phase. After that, the VOCs will be photocatalytically degraded in the aqueous phase, which is a better known concept than degradation in gas phase. The VOC degradation will occur via an optimized reactor design in which a UV transparent capillary tube is coated on the inside with photoactive material. This tube will be winded around a UV light source. In this way, there is a large contact time between pollutant and catalyst. Furthermore, this design ensures an active washing of the catalyst surface avoiding possible deactivation of the catalyst.
|