Investigation of the enhancement and optimization of the photocatalytic activity of modified TiO2 nanoparticles with SnO2 nanoparticles using statistical method

In this study, the pure TiO2 nanoparticles and two kinds of hybrids including decorated TiO2 nanoparticles with SnO2 nanoparticles (A-S (1-1) and A-S (1-2)) are synthesized by hydrolysis method in order to evaluate the photocatalytic activity. The synthesized photocatalysts are characterized using FTIR. The photocatalytic performance is recorded by variation of the photodecomposition of methyl orange as an organic pollutant with respect to the pH of solution (pH = 3, pH = 7 and pH = 11), UV irradiation time (ranging from 5 min to 20 min) and weight fraction of photocatalysts (0.1%wt, 0.2%wt and 0.3%wt). According to the obtained results based on Duncan's multiple range test at α = 0.05, it can be confirmed that the variations of the removal efficiency with main factors are significant. Meanwhile, compared with TiO2 nanoparticles, the photocatalytic activity of A-S (1-1) and A-S (1-2) enhances and it depends on the amount of decorated SnO2 nanoparticles on the outer surface of TiO2 nanoparticles. The kinetic investigation of the photocatalytic reactions reveals that the photocatalytic reaction rate constant (kp) enhances with introducing the SnO2 nanoparticles to the TiO2 nanoparticles. Furthermore, based on the optimization results it is clear that the maximized values of removal efficiency using synthesized TiO2 nanoparticles, A-S (1-1) and A-S (1-2) are 97.46%, 98.57% and 99.17%, respectively.