Study on the enhancement of photocatalytic environment purification through ubiquitous-red-clay loading

Tungsten oxide (WO3) is regarded as a promising visible-light-sensitive photocatalyst, but its activity is not high. Further enhancement of its activity has been anticipated using techniques such as loading of a cocatalyst to apply the oxide to indoor environmental remediation; Pt has been reported as a good cocatalyst for WO3 photocatalysis. However, Pt is precious and expensive metal. Thus, in this study, we sought to find a ubiquitous cocatalyst and suitable photocatalyst system. As a result, this study revealed that loading a ubiquitous material of red-clay enhanced WO3 photocatalytic activity remarkably. As photocatalyst samples, mixtures consisting of the clay and WO3 with different weight ratios were prepared using a simple kneading method. Their photocatalytic activity was evaluated from decomposition of harmful organic contaminant, 2-propanol into CO2 under visible-light irradiation. The WO3 with 10% of the clay loading showed the highest activity among the samples and much higher activity than pure WO3. This higher activity might derive from the clay’s promotion of H2O2 decomposition and charge separation (holes and electrons). The H2O2 was generated from photocatalytic O2 reduction. This formation and accumulation on the pure WO3 surface led to decreased activity.