Crystal structure, morphology and photodegradation performance of titania immobilized cordierite macrofoam at different calcination rate

In this paper, the titanium dioxide (TiO2) act as photocatalyst was immobilized on macroporous cordierite (supporting substrate) via sol-gel dip-coating method. The effect of calcination rate on characteristics of TiO2/cordierite foam were determined by using the XRD, SEM, and FTIR. The UV-Vis spectrometer was carried out to measure the photoactivity of calcined TiO2/cordierite foam by utilized the UV light irradiation on photodegradation of organic pollutant (methyl orange (MO)). The results revealed that, the TiO2/cordierite foam with calcination rate of 1 °C/min obtained superior removal efficiency (72.74%) after 8 hours UV irradiation. The low calcination rate promoted greater amount of catalyst as a result of coalescence of TiO2, which form a thick (5-10 µm) anatase phase layer with crystalline size of 32.86 nm on the substrate, which completely cover the bare cordierite foam.