Wastewater Treatment with Solar and Artificial Light

UN environmental reports of the last decades show a growing interest in increasing the global drinking water resources. The climate change and the growing environmental impacts reduce the chance to succeed. Besides increasing the wastewater treatment capacity and expanding drinking well areas, the development of water purification processes are required.Thin transparent TiO2 and WO3 layers show photocatalytic activity in the decomposition of water pollutants and are promising candidates for wide-scale applications in the field of water purification and wastewater treatment. In the present work, the photoelectrocatalytic activity of oxide layers under sunlight and artificial-light irradiation was examined. Adsorption and degradation properties of transparent and translucent TiO2 films for methylene blue were determined. The problem of calculating amorphous phases on amorphous substrates via XRD was solved with the determination of the crystalline content after annealing with different temperatures. A highly efficient reactor for the photoelectrocatalytic degradation was constructed by optimising the mass transfer between the liquid phase and the catalyst surface.