Creation of a semiconductor system for the removal of volatile organic compounds from biogas

摘要

This thesis is concerned with the preparation, and subsequent investigation of, titanium dioxide (TiO2) nanomaterials and their ability to remove phenol from gas streams for application towards the abatement of polluted land fill gas (LFG). Using the well documented ability of TiO2 to excite an electron by UV light, phenol was removed from gas streams to investigate the efficacy of TiO2 nanomaterials. Phenol was chosen as a representative VOC but the catalysts were proven to also remove four other organic compounds during gas phase photocatalysis. It was found that in loadings of 1 mol % the degradation of phenol could be increased relative to pristine TiO2 nanofibres. The activity of six metal oxide dopants were fairly compared to one another where it was found that cobalt doped TiO2 showed very high activity, more so than P25 powder. Furthermore, mono-metallic cobalt nanomaterials were shown to degrade phenol in the gas phase, however, more studies are required on these materials.udSupports for TiO2 were investigated in order to provide a more practical catalyst for industrial continuous flow reactors. These included novel zeolite:titania composites which were fibrous, non-woven mats of these materials were prepared by electrospinning and were shown to effectively remove phenol from polluted gas stream.