Modification to L-H Kinetics Model and Its Application in the Investigation on Photodegradation of Gaseous Benzene by Nitrogen-Doped TiO2

In this paper, the Langmuir-Hinshelwood (L-H) model has been used to investigate the kinetics of photodegradation of gaseous benzene by nitrogen-doped TiO2(N-TiO2) at 25 °C under visible light irradiation. Experimental results show that the photoreaction coefficientkpmincreased from 3.992 × 10−6mol·kg−1·s−1to 11.55 × 10−6mol·kg−1·s−1along with increasing illumination intensity. However, the adsorption equilibrium constantKLdecreased from 1139 to 597 m3·mol−1when the illumination intensity increased from 36.7 × 104lx to 75.1 × 104lx, whereas it was 2761 m3·mol−1in the absence of light. This is contrary to the fact thatKLshould be a constant if the temperature was fixed. This phenomenon can be attributed to the breaking of the adsorption-desorption equilibrium by photocatalytically decomposition. To compensate for the disequilibrium of the adsorption-desorption process, photoreaction coefficientkpmwas introduced to the expression ofKLand the compensation form was denoted asKm.KLis an indicator of the adsorption capacity of TiO2whileKmis only an indicator of the coverage ratio of TiO2surface. The modified L-H model has been experimentally verified so it is expected to be used to predict the kinetics of the photocatalytic degradation of gaseous benzene.Keywords:modified L-H model;N-TiO2;photocatalytic degradation;benzene