Elucidating the effects of different photoanode materials on electricity
generation and dye degradation in a sustainable hybrid system of
photocatalytic fuel cell and peroxi-coagulation process
Noradiba Nordin
a
, Li-Ngee Ho
a, *
, Soon-An Ong
b
, Abdul Haqi Ibrahim
b
, Sin-Li Lee
a
,
Yong-Por Ong
a
a
Center for Frontier Materials Research, School of Materials Engineering, Universiti Malaysia Perlis, 02600, Arau, Perlis, Malaysia
b
Water Research Group (WAREG), School of Environmental Engineering, Universiti Malaysia, Perlis, 02600, Arau, Perlis, Malaysia
highlights graphical abstract
Amaranth degradation at PFC was
affected by different photoanode
materials.
Influence of photoanode on degra-
dation at peroxi-coagulation reactor
was insignificant.
ZnO/CC generated higher electricity
compared to TiO
2
/CC and a-Fe
2
O
3
/CC
in the system.
Fast mineralization of intermediate
compounds occurred at PFC except
for a-Fe
2
O
3
/CC.
article info
Article history:
Received 27 June 2018
Received in revised form
22 September 2018
Accepted 24 September 2018
Available online 28 September 2018
Handling Editor: E. Brillas
Keywords:
Photocatalytic fuel cell
Peroxi-coagulation process
Photoanode materials
Electricity generation
Dye degradation
abstract
The hybrid system of photocatalytic fuel cell e peroxi-coagulation (PFC-PC) is a sustainable and green
technology to degrade organic pollutants and generate electricity simultaneously. In this study, three
different types of photocatalysts: TiO
2
, ZnO and a-Fe
2
O
3
were immobilized respectively on carbon cloth
(CC), and applied as photoanodes in the photocatalytic fuel cell of this hybrid system. Photocatalytic fuel
cell was employed to drive a peroxi-coagulation process by generating the external voltage accompa-
nying with degrading organic pollutants under UV light irradiation. The degradation efficiency of
Amaranth dye and power output in the hybrid system of PFC-PC were evaluated by applying different
photoanode materials fabricated in this study. In addition, the effect of light on the photocurrent of three
different photoanode materials was investigated. In the absence of light, the reduction of photocurrent
percentage was found to be 69.7%, 17.3% and 93.2% in TiO
2
/CC, ZnO/CC and a-Fe
2
O
3
/CC photoanodes,
respectively. A maximum power density (1.17mWcm
2
) and degradation of dye (93.8%) at PFC reactor
were achieved by using ZnO/CC as photoanode. However, the different photoanode materials at PFC
showed insignificant difference in dye degradation trend in the PC reactor. Meanwhile, the degradation
trend of Amaranth at PFC reactor was influenced by the recombination rate, electron mobility and band
gap energy of photocatalyst among different photoanode materials.
© 2018 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.
1. Introduction
The peroxi-coagulation (PC) process is an emerging technology
* Corresponding author.
E-mail addresses: holingee@yahoo.com, Inho@unimap.edu.my (L.-N. Ho).
Contents lists available at ScienceDirect
Chemosphere
journal homepage: www.elsevier.com/locate/chemosphere
https://doi.org/10.1016/j.chemosphere.2018.09.144
0045-6535/© 2018 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.
Chemosphere 214 (2019) 614e622