ABSTRACT

Titanium dioxide is widely used in the production of plastics, enamels, artificial fibers, electronic materials, and rubber (Hadjiivanov and Klissurski, 1996). Its ability to photocatalyze the oxidation of organic materials has been known for years in the paint industry. For this reason, TiO

is used as a white paint pigment (Stafford et al., 1996). TiO

is also known as an excellent catalyst for semiconductor photocatalysis due to its nonselectivity for environmental engineering applications; it is nontoxic, insoluble,

reusable, photostable, readily available, and inexpensive (Tang and Chen, 1996). UV/TiO

is an appealing advanced oxidation process (AOP) because it has been demonstrated that the process can mineralize a wide variety of organic pollutants.