TEHRAN (INIC)- Researchers at Iran University of Science and Technology succeeded in the degradation of water organic pollutants by the doping metals such as platinum on nanophotocatalysts in the presence of visible light.
“Photocatalytic reactions have interested many scientists due to their ability to eliminate the pollutants existing in gaseous and aqueous fluids," Dr. Shahrara Afshar, member of the Scientific Board of Iran University of Science and Technology, told the news service of Iran Nanotechnology Initiative Council’s website.
"The combination of UV or visible light with oxidation reactions can eliminate the bacteria and organic compounds dissolved in the solution.”
Pointing to the fact that this research is only a small part of a project that began 10 years ago and is still being pursued, Dr. Afshar continued, “Our purpose is to produce nanophotocatalysts that have desirable performance in the degradation of water pollutants by using sunlight or visible light.”
“In this regard, our research team have so far synthesized and investigated the performance of various catalysts from titanium nano oxide in the absence of organic pollutants by using metals such as platinum, iron, chrome, and vanadium with various morphologies like nanopowder, nanotube, tablet, nano-plate, and deposited on zeolites and cement blocks," she said.
"Our researches include the following stages: synthesis of the catalyst through sol-gel method, doping the desired metal, and the evaluation of the ability to degrade pollutants."
The researcher of the plan explained about the obtained results, and said, "The important result of this research was that platinum doping method had a very influential effect on the performance in the presence of visible light. However, we are continuing our research and we have obtained very promising results. We hope that the results could be applied in the purification of wastewater from all industries that produce organic pollutants.”
The research has been published in detail in Scientia Iranica Transactions F: Nanotechnology, vol. 18, pp. 772-779, 2011.
