Comparing the photocatalytic activity of suspended and floating Ag-decorated TiO2 for dye removal
Bibliographic record
Abstract
We proposed a two-step synthesis process to fabricate floating TiO2 and Ag-decorated TiO2 (Ag/TiO2) photocatalysts. In the first step, an ultrasound-assisted sol-gel method followed by spray drying was adopted to synthesize powder photocatalysts. Next, the powder samples were immobilized onto a floating polyurethane foam (PUF) support with an ultrasound-assisted impregnation method. The photocatalytic activity of TiO2 and Ag/TiO2 was evaluated to remove methyl orange (MO) as a dye pollutant in two suspended and floating photocatalytic systems. Ag decoration on TiO2 improved the optical and textural properties by narrowing the bandgap energy to 2.9 eV and increasing the surface area from 10 m2/g to 30 m2/g. Ag/TiO2 exhibited higher photocatalytic activity compared to TiO2 for MO removal, which was 98 % for suspended and 95 % for floating catalysts under simulated sunlight irradiation. In addition, floating photocatalysts exhibited higher photocatalytic activity over five cycles of reuse. Floating Ag/TiO2@PUF maintained 89 % of its initial photoactivity, while suspended Ag/TiO2 lost 50 % after the five cycles. Moreover, we investigated the effect of operating conditions on the photocatalytic performance of floating Ag/TiO2@PUF. Optimal conditions for the complete removal of MO below detection limits were obtained as follows: Ag/TiO2@PUF loading = 0.4:200 g/mL, initial MO concentration = 5 mg/L, time = 90 min, and pH = 4 under simulated sunlight irradiation. This study highlights the potential of floating photocatalyst systems as a sustainable, reusable, and scalable approach for wastewater treatment, addressing challenges in catalyst recovery and efficiency under real-world conditions.
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How this classification was reachedexpand
Full frame machine prediction
Teacher imitationNot calibrated prevalence, not ground truth. Human validation pending. The Gemma side is a direct model label for every work in the frame, read from the title-only record. The Codex side is a classifier learned from the 10,348 direct Codex labels and calibrated to design-weighted sample rates; fields without enough sample support carry no Codex call. Candidate is the union of the two sides; consensus is their intersection. These outputs are machine_predicted_unvalidated and are not human labels.
Distilled classifier scores by category (both heads)
| Category | Codex | Gemma |
|---|---|---|
| Metaresearch | 0.000 | 0.000 |
| Meta-epidemiology (narrow) | 0.001 | 0.000 |
| Meta-epidemiology (broad) | 0.000 | 0.000 |
| Bibliometrics | 0.000 | 0.000 |
| Science and technology studies | 0.000 | 0.000 |
| Scholarly communication | 0.000 | 0.000 |
| Open science | 0.000 | 0.000 |
| Research integrity | 0.001 | 0.000 |
| Insufficient payload (model declined to judge) | 0.000 | 0.000 |
Machine scores (provisional)
The two teacher heads of the student model, read on this work. A score orders the frame for review; it never asserts a category, and the validation status ships verbatim with every row.
Baseline scores from an immature model (maturity gate not passed, 7 training rounds). Scores rank; they never assert a category.
score_only:v0-immature-baseline · verbatim from the scoring run: score_only means the number may rank works, and no category label ships from itClassification
machine, unvalidatedMachine predicted; a candidate call from one source (direct Gemma or distilled Codex), not a consensus.
How this classification was reached, model by model and score by score, is at the end of the page under "How this classification was reached".