Bismuth oxide bromide (BiOBr) is a kind of photocatalysts which has high efficiency in degradation of antibiotics. In this project, BiOBr was used as a photocatalysts in the wastewater treatment system to degrade antibiotics. Different metals will be added into the BiOBr to modify the catalysts. The degradation efficiency of different catalysts will be evaluated and compared. Mechanistic study will be conducted by using the molecular templating method and the Density function theory (DFT) calculation to simulate the molecular diffusion of the antibiotics molecule.
The student will be responsible for catalyst preparation using different metals as the catalytic elements to modify the BiOBr properties to maximize the efficiency of degradation of antibiotics and study the mechanism of the antibiotics degradation
The students are able to learn:
- the preparation of the BiOBr and BiOBr-based metal catalysts
- the characterization of the catalysts and the reaction effluent products.
- the mechanistic study of the antibiotics degradation
- the basic fundamentals of the DFT simulation