| This thesis is written as a series of two technical papers that have been published in technical journals. Each paper has its own abstract, introduction, experimental methods, results and discussion as well as figures and tables.;Chapter 1 gives a brief overview of photocatalytic materials.;Chapter 2 contains the first paper, which examines the physicochemical aspects that influences the photo oxidation kinetics of a model dye compound.;Reference. Smith, Y.R.; Kar, A; Subramanian, V. Investigation of physicochemical parameters that influence photocatalytic degradation of methyl orange over TiO2 nanotubes. Industrial & Engineering Chemistry Research 2009, 48, 10268--10276.;Chapter 3 contains the second paper in which titania nanotubes are grown over a wire substrate as opposed to a foil substrate. A wire substrate demonstrates better photo oxidation kinetics than the foil configuration.;Reference. Kar, A; Smith, Y.R.; Subramanian, V. Improved degradation of textile dye using TiO2 nanotubes formed over titanium wires. Environmental Science & Technology 2009 , 43, 3260--3265. |
