Effect of ozone treatment addition on photocatalytic degradation of methylene blue using TiO2/activated carbon

Photocatalysis-driven technology has been of considerable interest, given its ability to mitigate environmental pollution. The present study examines the effectiveness of methylene blue (MB) degradation in photocatalysis processing, both with and without ozone addition. Photocatalysis processing was performed using a photocatalyst of TiO2-activated carbon (TiO2/AC). The ozone addition was generated by using a dielectric barrier discharge (DBD) plasma. DBD plasma technology was leveraged by using two electrodes separated by a glass dielectric insulator and a 1.5-kV alternating current (AC) voltage source with a 1 L/min air flow at atmospheric pressure and room temperature. The effects of photocatalysis with ozone treatment were compared to those of photocatalysis without ozone, using direct ultraviolet (UV) light irradiation. The photocatalyst composition of TiO2/AC used was in a thin layer prepared with a weight ratio of 50:1 wt%. The characteristics of the TiO2/AC thin layer were analyzed with a scanning electron microscope. The results showed that the effectiveness of MB degradation in photocatalysis with the ozone addition, as measured by a UV-Vis spectrophotometer, was higher than that without the ozone addition. Under a 10-min treatment time, the degradation of MB 50 ppm in photocatalysis with an ozone addition reached 99.73%, while that of photocatalysis without an ozone addition was only 12.80%.