Fabrication and properties of an immobilized P25TiO 2 -montmorillonite bilayer system for the synergistic photocatalytic–adsorption removal of methylene blue

Abstract A bilayer immobilized system consisting of a mesoporous montmorillonite (MT) as the sublayer and a porous P25TiO 2 toplayer was successfully fabricated on a glass plate. The MT sublayer was immobilized onto the glass plate by means of a glutaraldehyde (GLA) cross-linked poly (vinyl) alcohol (PVA) as the binder (MT-PVAB) while the top layer constituted of nano-sized TiO 2 bound by the ENR-PVC polymer blends (P-25TiO 2 ). The incorporation of MT-PVAB to P-25TiO 2 caused a reduction in the band gap energy while PLS emission spectra suggested higher separation rate for the photo-generated electron–hole pairs in the P-25TiO 2 /MT-PVAB/GP. The photocatalytic–adsorption removal experiments showed that the P-25TiO 2 /MT-PVAB/GP enhanced removal rate of MB by an average of 4 times as compared with the immobilized monolayer P-25TiO 2 on a glass plate (P-25TiO 2 /GP).