Síntese, caracterização e avaliação da atividade catalítica de compósitos de nióbio/argila em reações de oxidação

Abstract

The textile industry produces a large volume of waste that often is discarded into the environment without being properly treated. These effluents are made of organic molecules and are characterized by their color that alter the properties of water which leave it unfit for consumption. For the treatment of these effluents, the use of heterogeneous catalytic processes of low cost can be advantageous. Clays have been widely studied as catalyst supports because of their abundance in the Earth's crust and its low cost. Therefore, in this study the clays vermiculite and bentonite were used as support for the catalyst oxyhydroxide niobium and by the method of deposition-precipitation it was obtained composites formed from these materials. The composite Nb/clay were characterized and the main techniques showed that was changes in each clay. The results X-ray diffractometer (XRD) showed that there was a decrease in reflection intensity and a shift of the main peak of both clays when oxyhydroxide niobium is added to the structure. The spectroscopic analyzes show infrared adsorption bands of in both materials composite Nb/clay which indicates that the composite was actually formed. The scanning electron microscopy images also confirmed that structure modification. Oxidation and photocatalytic oxidation tests were performed with the obtained composite and photocatalytic oxidation test showed the best results, because the vermiculite composite (Nb/V0) showed higher photocatalytic activity by removing 98% of the color orange dye methyl in 90 minutes of reaction while the composite material of bentonite (Nb/B0) removed only 63% over the same reaction time. This activity is due to the composite Nb/V0 have presented a smaller value of band gap (3,08eV) than the composite Nb/B0 (3,33eV).