Photocatalysis, A Laboratory Experiment for an Integrated Physical Chemistry-Instrumental Analysis Course

The laboratory experiments described are intended for a junior-level integrated (Physical Chemistry–Instrumental Analysis) laboratory course. In these experiments, students explore various attributes of photocatalytic reactions, including kinetics and product characterization. The students may select the system they wish to study and the question they wish to investigate. This allows the project to be more open-ended than the typical laboratory. One system involves the solution-phase photocatalytic decomposition of benzoquinone or 2-chlorophenol using either TiO2 or ZnO as photocatalysts. In this series of experiments, the students may choose to compare photocatalysts to determine which catalyst is more effective or they may explore the kinetics of one reactant–photocatalyst combination. Another system for study is the gas-phase photocatalytic decomposition of trichloroethylene using TiO2 as the photocatalyst. This experiment requires the students to characterize the products of their photocatalytic reaction using FTIR and GC–MS. Thus the instructor and the students may select the portion of the experiment that best fits in with the students' and instructor's interests. Examples are included of student data collected from this experiment.