Abstract
The study of Polystyrene (PS) Photolysis was conducted using a mixture of PS-TiO2/SiO2/Ru composite. The photolysis was under sunlight conditions with 6.35-5.00 kWh/m(2)/day for 288-hour exposure; in Hail region KSA. The photocatalysis was prepared by impregnation method with ratios TiO2 25%, SiO2 75% and Ru 0.2%. Two types of samples photodegradation were applied on it; standard samples (STD) and municipal waste residues samples (MWR). The degradation efficiency % improved by doubling the amount of photocatalyst. MWR samples showed higher degradation efficiency % than STD samples. The degradation efficiency was confirmed by FTIR analysis, weight -loss % and Polarized Light Microscopy (PLM). FTIR showed a considerable decrease in the intensity of aromatic peaks at 751, 698 cm(-1) andan increase in the intensities for phenyl-C=0 at 2352 cm(-1) and O-H peaks at 3776 cm(-1). The XRD and SEM characterization for TiO2/SiO:/Ru composite shows an amorphous structure, with a particle size of 12.4-23.7 nm. EDX analysis shows an atomic weight % for SiO2: 79.81. TiO2: 16.76 and Ru,O-3: 3.43 at. %. Calculating the energy gap (E-g) for the TiO2/SiO2/Ru composite was by using emission wavelengths at lambda = 363, 378. 406, 438. and 463 nm giving E-g = 3.42. 3.28, 3.06, 2.82 and 2.68 eV respectively.