Water Resources Research Act Program

Details for Project ID 2014KY228B

Real-time monitoring of phtocatalytic degradation processes

Institute: Kentucky
Year Established: 2014 Start Date: 2014-03-01 End Date: 2015-02-28
Total Federal Funds: $5,000 Total Non-Federal Funds: $10,001

Principal Investigators: Matthew Nee

Project Summary: Photocatalytic degradation of solutions of organic compounds over titanium dioxide has been posited as a possible remediation scheme, but the mechanisms must be better understood before the technique can enter wide-spread usage. The work supported under this proposal will be divided into two sub-projects. We will further develop the Raman techniques we use, increasing the speed and sensitivity of the measurements. Our prototype reactor, which allows data to be collected without blocking the UV source allows collection of spectra limited only by the rate of data acquisition of the Raman spectrometer. With this approach, we should be able to collect spectra with excellent signal-to-noise ratios as rapidly as 20 times per second. We will also begin to extend our preliminary results on diatrizoate and iohexol to other classes of compounds using our improved techniques.