Catalytic and photocatalytic degradation of ozone via utilization of controllable nano‐Ag modified on TiO₂

To resolve increasing ozone pollution, nano‐silver‐anchored titanium dioxide (nano‐Ag/TiO 2 ), with a controllable diameter, synthesized by a photoreduction method, for ozone degradation is presented in this study. In the presence of ultraviolet (UV) irradiation, the nano‐Ag/TiO 2 catalyst exhibited high efficiency for ozone degradation, at ∼98–99% for all experiments. However, the efficiency of pure TiO 2 for ozone degradation rapidly dropped and became inefficient after 160 min. This is because ozone oxidized the surface of TiO 2 and formed an oxidative layer on the TiO 2 surface; then the photocatalytic ability of the re‐oxidized TiO 2 for ozone degradation was greatly reduced. The results also indicated that ozone was effectively degraded via the nano‐Ag/TiO 2 catalyst even without UV irradiation. The catalytic performance of nano‐Ag/TiO 2 for ozone degradation was enhanced by reducing the diameters and by effectively dispersing the Ag nanoparticles. In addition, the photocatalytic ozone degradation via nano‐Ag/TiO 2 revealed no decay at a relative humidity of 70% during the experimental period, and maintained excellent performance compared with that of pure TiO 2 .