Photocatalytic Degradation of Tributyltin Chloride in Water

The growth of aquatic organisms on vessel hulls creates roughness which gives rise to reduced vessel speed per unit energy consumption. A 10 (μm) increase of the average vessel hull can cause an increase in fuel consumption of about 0.3-1 %. Tributyltin (TBT) based antifouling paints began to use in the early 1970 s. Tributyltins contaminate marine environment and cause problems for marine environment, marine animals and eventually human. Tributyltin pollution in aquatic systems will result in various symptoms on organisms, like thickening of shell and failure of spots in oysters, imposex of neogastropods and gastropods, reduction of dog whelk population and the retardation of growth in mussels. Imposex was seen in some of the marine animals that are polluted by tributyltin. The dog whelk (Nucella lapillas) was often seen at the North Sea coast in Belgium but some years after using tributyltin as antifouling agent, this kind of animals disappeared. This is because of imposex and extinction of females. Organotin compounds especially tributyltin compounds are one of the most serious pollutants of sea water There are different approaches to overcome this problem. Many methods were developed for remediation of water from tributyltin chloride. One of the approaches is the degradation of pollution by light. The average bond energy for Sn-C is about 200 kJ/mol and UV radiation with a wavelength of 290 nm provides energy about 300 kJ/mol. Therefore, by irradiation the organotin compound with UV radiation with suitable wavelength, the Sn-C bond can be cleaved resulting in the formation of di-, mono and inorganic tin compo-unds. However, due to the low range of UV in solar light, using artificial light (UV) with or without catalyst unavoidable. The degradation of tributyltin chloride is gener-ally followed the reaction mechanism where the tributyltin chloride (TBT) will be converted