Desenvolvimento de fotocatalisadores para aplicação na reação de redução do nitrato

Abstract

The necessity to remove nitrate ions from drinking water is growing, due to contamination of groundwater by these species, which has as main sources the fertilizers and the domestic and industrial sewage. In this way, photocatalysis appears as a method to convert these ions to gaseous nitrogen, which is environmentally harmless. In this work, trimetallic catalysts of Ag,Cu and Fe supported on silica and alumina, and catalysts based in commercial titania were synthesized to application in the photocatalytic reduction of nitrate. Nitrogen adsorption analysis showed that the mesoporous materials supported in SiO2 and Al2O3 had elevated surface area. From the X ray diffraction, only alumina and iron oxide phases were identified in trimetallic materials, and to the TiO2 only anatase and rutile phases. The content of metals in the catalysts, determined by atomic absorption spectrometry and energy dispersive spectroscopy analysis, were closed to calculated values. Experiments performed using trimetallic catalysts showed they were ineffective to remove nitrate ions from standard solutions, even optimizing parameters, as pH and the power of the irradiation source. Tests performed with commercial TiO2 result in pronounced nitrate conversion and high N2 selectivity (69.5 and 99.5%). However, the presence of sulphate, phosphate and fluoride ions in solution leads to catalyst inactivation. The silver introduced as a dopant in the titanium dioxide improved the results showing a higher conversion of the nitrate ions. Experiments performed with groundwater as sample showed a high loss of activity of the catalysts.