Removal of indoor valatile organic contaminants by UV-irradiated titania-coated-honeycombs-Improvement of photocatalytic reactivity with airborne cations

摘要

For the maintenance of high-level air quality in anisolated space (mini-environment), where various organic vaporsare outgassed from plastics and sealants of the enclosure, it isnecessary to equip it with air-cleaning systems. Removal systemof VOCs is also required for indoor air because volatile organiccompounds (VOC) include substances with not only givenunpleasant feeling but may cause serious health problems. Thepresent work aims at developing an effective titania-photocatalytic reactor which decomposes gaseous contaminantsin air. We proposed a removal system with titania-coatedhoneycomb and evaluated its removal characteristics under dryair condition. Further, in order to achieve higher removalefficiency for VOC, we investigated the effectiveness of cationintroduction into photocatalytic reaction. As a result, it wasfound that the proposed photocatalytic reactor attains stableremoval of toluene and ethanol vapors and that the introductionof cations is effective to improve removal efficiency of toluene vapor.