Preparation of iron-doped titania from flocculated sludge with iron-titanium composite coagulant

The main drawback of flocculation process with dye wastewater is the large amount of unrecyclable sludge which needs disposal. A novel process using Ti-salt flocculation to purify wastewater was developed to produced sludge that can be calcined to produce titania. In this study, iron-doped TiO2 nanomaterial was successfully produced from sludge obtained by the flocculation of dye wastewater with a composite floculant including TiCl4 and FeSO4. The titania was characterised using scanning electron microscopy (SEM/EDX), transmission electron microscopy (TEM), X-ray diffraction (XRD), and the photodecomposition of acetaldehyde. The XDR results showed that the anatase and rutile structures were found after sludge calcination at 550 degrees C and 640 degrees C respectively. The elemental analyses were carried out using EDX. The rutile titania sample consisted of Ti (35.7 wt.%), Fe (14.7 wt.%), O (42.3 wt.%), P (2.6 wt.%) and Ca (4.7 wt.%). The photocatalytic activity was monitored for the photodecomposition of gas acetaldehyde. Iron-doped titania seems to play an important role in increasing the photocatalytic activity under UV light irradiation.