High concentration propane depletion with photocatalysis

Our work is aimed at studying the abatement of volatile organic compounds produced by photocatalysts working in different light spectra, investigating the best catalyst able to treat propane in air mixtures at high concentrations of the order of thousands of ppm. The experimental data were analyzed in order to extract the relevant parameters and to compare the catalytic activities of three different photocatalysts, TiO2, WO3, and their mixtures. In a reactor box of 1.5 l, photocatalysis processing with TiO2 catalysts gave the best propane depletion of the order of 10% for initial propane concentrations of up to 5000 ppm after 22 min and UV-A lamps with an intensity of 0.4 mW/cm2 while the TiO2 and WO3 catalysts produced an abatement of about 5% after 22 min using UV-C light at an intensity of 5 × 102 mW/cm2.