Study of COD Removal Efficiency from Synthetic Wastewater by Photocatalytic Process

In this research, we compared the COD removal efficiencies of titanium dioxide ($TiO_2$) thin films coated on the surfaces of borosilicate glass that prepared by three different numbers of coating layer; i) 3 layers ii) 4 layers and iii) 5 layers by sol-gel method. All of the prepared $TiO_2$ thin films consisted of pure anatase crystalline structure with grain sizes in the range 20-250 nm. The calculated optical band gaps of the $TiO_2$ thin films were 3.24. The total apparent surface area per total weight of $TiO_2$ thin films were 4.74, 3.86 and $2.79m^2g^{-1}$ for 3, 4 and 5 layers coating, respectively. The kinetics of the photodegradation reactions of COD under UVA light source were described by the Langmuir-Hinshelwood (L-H) kinetic model. The specific rates of the photodegradation of $TiO_2$ thin films at 3 layers coating was $1.40{\times}10^{-4}min^{-1}mW^{-1}$, while for the 4 layers coating and the 5 layers coating were $1.50{\times}10^{-4}$ and $4.60{\times}10^{-4}min^{-1}mW^{-1}$, respectively. The photocatalytic performance of COD degradation was higher with smaller grain size, higher surface area and narrow optical band gaps. Moreover, the numbers of coating layer on substrate also have great influence for kinetic of COD removal.