Photocatalytic degradation of ethyl paraben wastewater by mixed crystal molecularly imprinted TiO₂

Wuhan University of Science and Technology, School of Urban Construction, Wuhan 430065, China

^* Corresponding author: 867685846@qq.com

Abstract

Using ethyl paraben as the template molecule and n-tetrabutyl titanate as the titanium source, the molecularly imprinted titanium dioxide (MIP-TiO₂) photocatalyst was prepared by the sol-gel method. The effects of different pH values, imprinting molecular weights and other factors on the degradation of ethyl paraben were studied, and the materials were analyzed by TEM, XRD, FT-IR and other characterization methods. The results show that the catalyst has a mixed crystal structure in which anatase and rutile ore coexist, and the rutile ore content of MIP-TiO₂ is calculated to be 78.5%. Catalytic degradation of ethyl paraben by reacting for 40 min under ultraviolet light, the removal rate of ethyl paraben by pure TiO₂ is 80.74%, and the removal rate of ethyl paraben by MIP-TiO₂ can reach 96.27%. MIP-TiO₂ is 15.53% higher than TiO₂. MIP-TiO₂ has imprinting holes, which can target the target pollutants and effectively improve the selectivity of the photocatalyst MIP-TiO₂. The selectivity factor of MIP-TiO₂ is 1.69 times that of TiO₂.