Sri Wardhani, Danar Purwonugroho, Cholidatul Widya Fitri, Yuniar Ponco Prananto
Untreated phenol waste causes environmental pollution. The phenol waste can be treated using the photocatalyst method. This study aims to examine the effect of pH and irradiation time on the degradation of phenol compounds using TiO2-chitosan thin film photocatalysts. The synthesis of a thin layer photocatalyst was prepared by a dip-coating method or dye method on a glass media. The TiO2 was characterized by powder-XRD. TiO2-chitosan thin photocatalyst activity was tested using 100 mg/L phenol solution with pH variations of 4, 6, 8, 10, and 12, with and without UV irradiation for 5 hours. The irradiation times used were 1, 2, 3, 4, and 5 hours and only applied at the optimum pH. The results were statistically tested using BNT. The concentrations of phenol before and after treatments were measured by a UV-Vis spectrophotometer at 269.7 nm. The XRD characterization results show that the TiO2 that is used has an anatase structure. Both pH and irradiation time influences the phenol degradation percentage. The optimum phenol pH was 8 for both with and without UV light, whereas the optimum irradiation time was 5 hours with phenol degradation of 33.85% (using UV light) and 4.42% (without UV light). © 2018 Author(s).
Department of Chemistry, Faculty of Mathematics and Natural Sciences, Brawijaya University, Malang, East Java, 65145, Indonesia
