Effect of the Nature of Metal Nanoparticles on the Photocatalytic Degradation of Rhodamine B

Rhodamine B (RhB), which has several industrial and chemical applications, is a harmful dye. It requires treatment prior to discharging for both environmental and societal safety. In this context, titania (denoted as DTS) supported different types of noble metal nanoparticles, with one percent weight per weight loading of metal. These were synthesized and were applied for RhB photodegradation. The synthesized photocatalysts were characterized by BET surface area, X-ray powder diffraction (XRPD), transmission electron microscopy (TEM), solid-state UV-Vis, H-2-TPR study, CO-pulse chemisorption analysis. The activity of 1% noble metals/DTS for RhB photodegradation under UV irradiation follows the order of Pt/DTS > Pd/DTS > Ru/DTS > DTS. The most optimal activity of Pt/DTS could be attributed to its lowest reflectance and highest degree of absorbance of UV light, its smallest band gap energy (E-g) and its moderate interactions with DTS support.