Abstract
Furfural, chemical compound very harmful to human health and difficult to degrade, is used or generated in many industries, including petrochemical, paper, and oil refining industries. The study evaluates the performance of Fe-TiO2 nanoparticles for the removal of furfural in the presence of sunlight and UV radiation. Fe-TiO2 nanoparticles were prepared by the sol-gel method, and the characteristics of the resultant nanoparticles were determined using scanning electron microscopy. Samples with known concentrations of furfural and nanoparticles were individually exposed to sunlight and UV radiation under varying conditions, and the residual furfural concentration was measured using highperformance liquid chromatography. The results showed that for both processes the efficiency of furfural removal increased with increased reaction time, nanoparticle loading, and pH, whereas the efficiency decreased with increased furfural concentration. The highest removal efficiencies of the Fe-TiO2/UV and Fe-TiO2/sun processes were 95 and 76%, respectively. In general, the degradation and elimination rate of furfural using Fe-TiO2/UV process was higher than Fe-TiO2/sun process because TiO2 nanoparticles can only be activated upon irradiation with photons of light in the UV domain.
| Original language | English |
|---|---|
| Pages (from-to) | 207-224 |
| Number of pages | 18 |
| Journal | Environment Protection Engineering |
| Volume | 43 |
| Issue number | 3 |
| Publication status | Published - 2017 |
| Externally published | Yes |
| MoE publication type | A1 Journal article-refereed |
Funding
The authors express their thanks to the laboratory staff of the Department of Environmental Health Engineering, Faculty of Health and Health Sciences of the Mazandaran University of Medical Sciences, Sari, Iran for their collaboration, and to the Research Deputy of Mazandaran University of Medical Sciences for the financial support of this study (Project No. 92-1).