Photocatalytic Oxidation Utilizing Doped Titanium Dioxide for Air Purification

Overview

Nashua High School South Air pollution has become the deadliest environmental problem, leading to more than seven million deaths per year. People are forced to wear masks in China to protect themselves from the heavy smog in the area. In the U.S. alone, $500 million are spent yearly on air purifiers to increase indoor air quality. Current effective air purifiers are extremely expensive (up to thousands of dollars) and cannot filter many dangerous pollutants such as volatile organic compounds (VOCs). In order to mitigate these issues, a filter using photocatalytic oxidation by doping titanium dioxide was created and tested. By using a sol-gel process, titanium dioxide nanoparticles were doped with various dopants such as silver nitrate and coated on a paper filter. This doping process reduced the band-gap energy, therefore; increasing the air purification efficiency. The screen was tested by passing polluted air through the filter and analyzing the outgoing air using air quality monitors. Through this research, a new dopant called PANI was found to be the most effective in reducing air pollutants. The PANI-doped titanium dioxide brought down the amount of VOCs by 99% after 2 hours. This data was also supported with the methylene blue degradation process seen through the ultraviolet-visible spectroscopy data. Furthermore, the samples destroyed 70% of bacteria in 15 minutes of exposure, proving PANI-doped titanium dioxide to be the most efficient solution toward air purification. A materials cost of $0.90 proved that using PANI-doped titanium dioxide is more efficient and affordable than other current air purification solutions.

Competition history

• JSHS 2020 Category not listed

Resources

• National JSHS abstract book ↗

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