Photodegradation of hospital wastes and hydrogen production simultaneously using Fe-TiO₂nanocomposite

The photocatalyst system in degrading methylene blue dye and antibiotic ciprofloxacin while simultaneously producing hydrogen was carried out to observe the effect of different Fe concentrations in TiO2 nanoparticles and pH value of the solution. The process of degradation and production of hydrogen simultaneously took place in an acrylic reactor equipped with a Philips 250-Watt lamp. Nanocomposites were synthesized by sonophotodeposition method with Fe(NO3)3 solution. The XRD results showed that the Fe3+ dopant successfully entered the crystal lattice of TiO2 nanoparticles. The results of characterization with UV-Vis DRS showed that the energy gap in Fe-TiO2 nanocomposites was lower than pure TiO2 and could redshifted the absorbance at higher wavelength into visible region. The FTIR results show that the addition of Fe dopant can give higher peak values in the O-H bond. The photocatalysis process in alkaline solution with 1.5% Fe-TiO2 showed the best degradation conversion for methylene blue and ciprofloxacin of 98.5% and 94% respectively. Accordingly, by adding the dopant Fe with concentration of 1.5%wt on the semiconductor TiO2, compared with the bare nanocomposite TiO2 it was able to degrade 75% and 38.46% of methylene blue and ciprofloxacin. In addition, nanocomposite with the best photoactivity could also produce 0.16 μmol, 0.10 μm, and 0.07 μmol of hydrogen for pH 5, 7, and 10 respectively.