Abstract:
The objective of this research was to study efficiency of toluene removal by photocatalysis process using titanium dioxide coated quartz fiber filter and glass fiber filter. The experiment was carried out by using fluorescent lamp and blacklight lamp as a light source. The intensity of fluorescent lamps and blacklight lamps were 0.6, 1.5 and 2.1 µW/cm² and 52, 124 and 156 µW/cm², respectively. The amount of titanium dioxide loading on the quartz fiber filter and glass fiber filter was 10 g/m² and initial concentration of toluene was 1, 5 and 10 ppm. The toluene removal efficiency was carried out in a 30-L reactor at controlled temperature of 25±2 °C, relative humidity of 50 -70 %. The size of quartz fiber and glass filter coated titanium dioxide was 0.156 m². The treatment time was 180 minutes. TiO₂-coated quartz fiber and glass fiber when tested with 10 ppm of toluene showed the best removal efficiency of 42.88 % and 21.74 %, respectively. In contrast, backlight lamp at all UV intensities can remove toluene to the standard level according to the residential indoor air quality guidelines which is 0.6 ppm for long term (24 hour). When testing at 187µW/cm² UV intensity and 10 ppm of toluene with TiO₂-coated quartz fiber and glass fiber for 60 and 45 minutes, respectively showed the best removal efficiency of %, 95.84 and 95.42 respectively can be obtained from the test. As a result, it can be concluded that using blacklight lamp can remove more toluene than fluorescent lamp. Due to the backlight characteristics which have high capacity to generate electron in an excited state, toluene removal is faster than using light in visible range from fluorescent lamp. These results were in accordance with the photo catalysis oxidation theory.