Abstract

Treatment of tannery wastewater is a challenging task because of its complex components, deep colour and high concentration of suspended solids. This study aims to develop a treatment system that can effectively reduce the pollutants in tannery wastewater to an environmentally acceptable level. Manganese (Mn)-doped mesoporous titanium dioxide (TiO2) was successfully synthesized via a solgel method using butyl titanate as a precursor and surfactant P123 as a template. When the dosage of Mn in the mesoporous TiO2 was 0.4%, the degradation rate of organic pollutants was nearly 90% after 8 hours of treatment with metal halide. The as-prepared products showed excellent photocatalytic activity even sunlight was used as an illuminant. The degradation rate of organic pollutants reached 87.5% when sunlight was used for excitation. Results of this study can be used as a reference in purifying various types of industrial wastewater.