Photodegradation catalyst discovery by high-throughput experiment

A high-throughput experimental methodology was developed for photocatalysis reaction. In this work, a CCD imaging analysis system and photocatalytic reactor for UV light was designed and tested. By making use of the technologies, we have screened several catalyst libraries. From the SiO2-supported single component catalyst library, we found that TiO2, ZrO2, Nb2O5, and WO3 were good candidates for highly active catalyst formulation. We designed and screened several triangle catalyst libraries and found that the WO3- and Nb2O5-codoped TiO2 catalyst showed much higher photodegradation activities for the degradation of 1,6-hexamethylenediamine than did the pure TiO2 catalyst. The doping of ZrO2 into TiO2 did not generate apparent positive effects on catalytic activity.