Removal of ppb-level airborne molecular contaminates by photocatalytic oxidation using fiber-illuminated honeycomb reactor

The removal of airborne molecular contaminates (AMC) at ppb level is one of the most critical challenges in clean rooms for the semiconductor industry. Photocatalytic oxidation is an innovative and promising technology for ppb-level AMC degradation. As shown in Figure, we designed a fiber-illuminated honeycomb reactor (FIHR) in which the removal efficiency of m-xylene was significantly enhanced to 96.5 % as compared to 22.0 % for UV irradiation only. The results indicated that photocatalysts not only played the role to substantially oxidize m-xylene, but also altered the chemical properties of xylene under UV illumination. Using the FIHR with Mn-TiO2 photocatalyst not only increased the m-xylene removal efficiency, but also increased the CO2 selectivity. Interestingly, Mn-TiO2 in FIHR also showed a very good reusability, 93 % removal efficiency was still achieved in 72-h in reaction. Thus, the FIHR gave very high removal efficiency for xylene at ppb level under room temperature. The FIHR has great potential application in the clean room for the air purification system in the future.
Reference:
Yi-Ting Wu, Yi-Hui Yu, Van-Huy Nguyen, Kung-Te Lu, Jeffrey C. S. Wu, Luh-Maan Chang, Chi-Wen Kuo, Journal of Hazardous Materials, 262, 717-725 (2013)