Engineering HDR Seminar Series No 8, 2015

30 January 2015, 14:00 – 15:00

Room 5-4-22, Monash University Malaysia

Presenter: Mr. Lam Weng Hoong, postgraduate students of Chemical  Discipline, School of Engineering, Monash University Malaysia

The development of semiconductor titanium dioxide (TiO2) for water purification, particularly for the mineralisation of harmful organic pollutants has attracted great interests. Commercially available TiO2nanoparticles, often in the size of nano meter range, have posed great challenges for the recovery and reusability of the nanoparticles in wastewater treatment practices. In this instance, an effective post-treatment separation process for TiO2 nanoparticles is often needed and it could be costly and unviable for practical applications. One practical solution to this problem is to immobilise of TiO2 nanoparticles on a fixed support of larger size to ease the post-treatment separation. Recent developments of TiO2 immobilisation onto renewable biopolymers have attracted much interest. The focus of the project is to develop TiO2/alginate nanocomposite using novel immobilisation method for photocatalysis of organic pollutants in water. In the first stage of the project, TiO2/alginate nanocomposite complexes were synthesised, characterised and the performance of the complexes for photocatalysis was evaluated. The later stage of the project involves the synthesis and characterisation of core-shell alginate/TiO2 nanocomposite particles. The photocatalytic performance of the core-shell alginate/TiO2 nanocomposite particles will be evaluated subsequently.

Contact details:
Wan Nurul Rukiah Wan Rasdi
wan.nurul@monash.edu
Tel: 03-55146224