Photocatalytic Degradation of Toluene and BTEX Compounds in Gas Reactor Modified by TiO2/Ti Net Nanotubes

Abstract Exposure to volatile organic compounds (VOCs), such as toluene and BTEX gas, may cause severe impacts on the environment and long-term health problems for the workers. Industry must place this issue as a priority in supporting occupational health and efforts to minimize the environmental effects. However, many industries still have not paid more attention to degrading their industrial waste containing these compounds. Several studies on VOCs degradation in liquid and aerial media were developed in line with the rapid progress of nanomaterial technology. In this work, we have successfully synthesized TiO2/Ti Net nanotubes thin film resulted from anodization of Ti plate at 25 V vs Ag pseudo-reference electrode for eight hours and physically characterized by SEM/EDX and XRD. The activity test of photocatalysis was performed to determine the TiO2/Ti Net Nanotube's performance to degrade toluene steam and BTEX standard gas. Under the optimum experimental condition, the results showed that approximately 70% of toluene and 60% of BTEX standard gas were degraded in 120 min under the optimum experimental condition. The gas reactor generated approximately 400 ppm CO2 as a byproduct.