Photocatalytic degradation of organic dyes from wastewater using polymeric nanocomposites

Huge amounts of colorful pollutants including organic dyes like Methylene Blue (MB) and Rhodamine B (RB) which are discharged into the environment as industrial wastewaters, necessitate the use of high performance wastewater treatment methods because these compounds cause environmental hazards besides human health problems [1]. Photocatalytic degradation of organic pollutants by photo-assisted generation of active radicals using different nano-sized photocatalysts like TiO¬¬¬2 is an effective method which has attracted much more attention due to its inexpensiveness and lack of the formation of secondary pollutants after utilization [2, 3]. The main problem in the application of these methods is the difficulty in separation of photocatalyst from reaction medium after utilization that can be overcome by entrapment of photocatalyst in a matrix as a nanocomposite which as well provides high surface area for its photocatalytic activity [4].In the present study, three types of polymeric nanocomposites were synthesized by polymerization of polystyrene and maleic anhydride in the presence of TiO2 as photocatalyst for the photocatalytic dagradation of MB and RB in wastewater samples using UV irradiation. The effective parameters including pH, temperature, time and amount of nanocomposite were optimized using dagradation percent as the response. High degradation values were obtained toward removal of MB and RB from wastewater samples using proposed nanocomposite.