Characterisation of titania nanotubes supported gold particles for MTBE photocatalytic degradation

Au/TNT catalysts were prepared with different gold loadings by deposition – precipitation. The catalysts were characterised by techniques including XRD, HRTEM, AAS and N2 adsorption analysis. Experimental results show that the value of surface areas and pore volumes increase with increasing Au amounts. The surface area and pore volume of catalyst with high gold loading (3.1 wt-%) are 325 m2 g−1 and 1.34 cm3 g−1. The photocatalytic performance for degradation of MTBE markedly depends on gold concentration. The activity drop is attributed to the size growth and agglomeration of the gold nanoparticles. Photoactivity improvement is related to the number of nucleation centres and fine particles size. It can be concluded that there is a 10% improvement in efficiency for deposition of gold in the highest concentration compared to pure titanium nanotubes during the first 20 min of the reaction. So the photocatalytic degradation of MTBE occurs in a shorter time.