Enhanced photocatalytic decomposition of phenol in wastewater by using La-TiO nanocomposite.

In this work, La-TiO nanocomposite was synthesized by loading lanthanum onto TiO and used for improving photodegradation of phenol in wastewater. The characterizations of La-TiO demonstrated that the loading of La onto TiO not only increased its adsorption light zone up to 470 nm but also decreased the band gap energy from 3.1 to 2.64 eV. Photoluminescence spectra of La-TiO confirmed the enhancing separation rate between electron and hole, leading to improve photodegradation efficiency of phenol. The removal rate of phenol was influenced by solution pH and alkaline conditions could bring better removal efficiency. In presence of light, the photodegradation efficiency of phenol by TiO was 64.1%, while it increased up to 93.4% by La-TiO photocatalyst. La-TiO nanocomposite was tested for five cycles and it showed only 13.8% dropping in the photodegradation efficiency of phenol. Besides, over 82% of phenol was removed from the wastewater sample by modified TiO, demonstrating the potential of La-TiO photocatalyst for water pollution control.