Development of an FTIR in situ reactor for real time study of surface reactions in photocatalysis

For many years, photocatalysis has been proposed as one of the promising techniques to abate environmental pollutants. To improve the catalytic efficiency, it is vital to know the reaction mechanisms of the photocatalytic degradation. Different methods are therefore described in literature to study these mechanisms at the gaseous phase/photocatalyst interface with Fourier transform infrared (FTIR) spectroscopy as a commonly used method. The reactors described in literature and/or available on the market experience some technical and scientific difficulties. Generally, the catalyst can only be investigated after the reactions have occurred, or it is only possible to look at the changes in the gas phase concentrations while the reactions are taking place. It is thus a major challenge to develop a reactor which makes it possible to detect changes on the catalyst surface at the moment the reactions are happening.;In this work, a new reactor is developed that makes it possible to study the catalytic surface at the moment the reactions occur, by means of transmission-absorption FTIR spectroscopy. Moreover, by using UV LEDs, it was possible to install the UV light inside the reactor area, so that no harmful UV light can leave the reactor, inherently making it a safer method. It was also opted to construct the reactor in a modular way, so that every part was interchangeable and could easily be replaced according to the needs of the researcher. A special screw cap is designed to hold the UV LEDs on a printed circuit board and to fit in every standard FTIR spectrometer.;This study provides exciting new insights in the photocatalytic degradation mechanism of ethylene and acetaldehyde. It is for instance found that OH radicals are used as the oxidising agents to abate these pollutants. For ethylene it was proven that the molecular orbitals play an important role, resulting in the formation of both formaldehyde and formic acid as intermediates before complete mineralisation could be achieved. In the case of acetaldehyde, new insights in the adsorption behaviour were provided. It was found that acetic acid, formaldehyde and formic acid are intermediate products, necessary to obtain mineralisation.