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The environmental effects of industrial effluents are of ever increasing concern to all. An increasingly favoured technology is to use metal oxides as photocatalysts to degrade the compounds of concern and decrease the environmental impact of such wastes. Of the metal oxides available, zinc oxide (ZnO) is less commonly used than titanium dioxide (TiO2), despite evidence that it can be more economical in large scale water treatment and more effective at degrading a number of different compounds. Also, powder catalyst is the main form currently applied, but is difficult to handle and reuse after one set of reactions. To solve this problem, ZnO can be immobilised on rigid supports. However this lowers the surface area and therefore reaction rates from the ZnO. To overcome this disadvantage and therefore to produce the optimal thin film supported ZnO photocatalysts, different nanostructured ZnO thin films will be fabricated. This project aims to find the optimal ZnO nanostructured thin film that can be applied as a photocatalyst for a range of different industrially important wastewaters. This will be done by systematically correlating the thin film structures and composition to reaction rate, overall degradation amount, reaction mechanism, and mechanical and chemical stability. In doing so, we will also determine the relationship between the solution and solid reaction mechanisms for nanostructured thin film undoped and doped zinc oxide (ZnO) surface morphologies during the photocatalytic oxidation of wastewaters. This will aid better design of photocatalysts in the future to maximise reaction rate and minimise catalyst deactivation and degradation.
The wastewaters to be studied can be chosen by the successful PhD applicant. Different ZnO thin film morphologies are to be prepared by several different thin film deposition methods on different types of catalyst supports, producing a wide range of undoped and doped ZnO nanostructured thin films. Reactions of the wastewaters are to be monitored by HPLC, GC-FID, FTIR, UV-Vis and LC-MS. SEM, FTIR, AA and EDS are to be used to determine the effect of reaction on morphologies before and after photocatalysis.
This project builds directly on previous work in the Patterson research group, which has shown that ZnO photocatalytic oxidation can occur via a Mars Van Krevelen type redox mechanism. The interplay between this and the other photocatalytic mechanisms is the focus of this work from now on.
Funding Notes:
This will cover the home rate University tuition fees for up to three years with a stipend of £13,600 (tax free) in the first year with an increase in years 2 and 3. This is available for students with British citizenship, UK Settled status, or who are ‘ordinarily resident’ in the UK for three years prior to grant start. Otherwise, only University tuition fees can be covered for EU citizens. Candidates should be expecting, or already holding, a first class or upper second class degree in Chemical Engineering, Chemistry or a related subject.