Novel aspects of photocatalysis

This thesis is concerned with the development of plastic, photocatalytic reactors/film, for water and air purification and sterilization. <i><b>Chapters 1</b></i> and <i><b>2</b></i> provide an introduction to the subject area and a brief description of the main common experimental methods employed. <b><i>Chapter 3</i></b> describes two types of lab-scale, 3D printed plastic, fixed-film, flow-through photocatalytic, both of which are sinusoidal in shape, and only differ in that one has no baffles, reactor <b>A</b>, whereas the other has, reactor <b>B</b>.

Both reactors are lined with a P25 TiO₂/polylactic acid (PLA) coating, which, after UVA pre-conditioning, is used to photocatalyse the bleaching of circulating aqueous solutions of either methylene blue, MB, or phenol, PhOH, repeatably, without any obvious loss of activity. The rate of the photocatalysed bleaching of MB exhibited by reactor <b>B</b> shows a much lower dependence upon flow rate than reactor <b>A</b>, due to the greater lateral mixing of the laminar flow streams produced by the baffles.