Kinetics of Photocatalytic Degradation of Formic Acid over Silica Composite Films Based on Polyoxome

The composite films, XW11O39n-/SiO2, (X refers to Si, Ge or P, respectively) were prepared by tetraethoxysilane (TEOS) hydrolysis sol-gel method via spin-coating technique. Formation of the composite films is due to strong chemical reaction of organic silanol group with the surface oxygen atoms of XW11O39n-, resulted in the saturation of the surface of the lacunary polyoxometalates (POMs). Therefore, the coordination structural model of the films was proposed. As for the films, retention of the primary Keggin structure was confirmed by UV-vis, FT-IR spectra and MAS NMR. The surface morphology of the films was characterized by SEM, indicating that the film surface is relatively uniform, and the layer thickness is in the range of 250~350 nm. Aqueous formic acid (FA) (0-20 mmol/L) was degraded into CO2 and H2O by irradiating the films in the near-UV area. The results show that all the films have photocatalytic activities and the degradation reaction follows Langmuir-Hinshelwood first order kinetics.