Photocatalytic membrane of a novel high surface area TiO2 synthesized from titanium triisopropanolamine precursor

Photocatalytic membrane was successfully prepared using an efficiently high surface area TiO2 catalyst, dispersed into polyacrylonitrile matrix. The catalyst was directly synthesized using titanium triisopropanolamine as a precursor. The membranes were characterized using FT-IR, TGA, SEM and their photocatalytic performance tested, viz. stability, permeate flux and photocatalytic degradation of 4-NP. We find that polyacrylonitrile is an effective matrix, showing high stability and low permeate flux. The amount of TiO2 loaded in the membrane was varied between 1, 3 and 5 wt% to explore the activity and stability of membranes in the photocatalytic reaction of 4-NP. As expected, the higher the loading of TiO2 loaded, the higher the resulting catalytic activity. Copyright  2006 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.