Adsorption and photocatalytic degradation of methyl orange imprinted composite membranes using TiO2/calcium alginate hydrogel as matrix

Abstract In this paper, molecularly imprinted TiO 2 /calcium alginate (T/CA) membrane was synthesized by using T/CA as supporting matrix, ethylenetri(β-methoxy) ethyoxysilane (KH-570) and γ-amidopropyltri- ethyoxysilane (KH-550) as functional monomers and methyl orange (MO) as template. The T/CA membranes and MO imprinted T/CA composite membranes were characterized by SEM, FT-IR and XRD. The adsorption and photocatalytic degradation of MO imprinted membranes were investigated. The results indicated that the process of dispersion in alginate and sol-gel of silanes did not have influence on the crystallization process of nano-TiO 2 particles. MO was adsorbed more and faster by the molecularly imprinted membrane (MIP) than the non-imprinted membrane (NIP). Also, MIP showed good selectivity for photodegradation of MO when using MR as competitive molecules.