For this process to remove VOCs in an industrial or residential setting, it requires the correct light

source. This light source needs to be able to activate the semiconductor photocatalyst in order to
initiate oxidation. The semi-conductor photocatalytic materials have a band structure, one band is
called the valence band which is occupied by electrons and another band called the conductance band
which is unoccupied. Between these bands there is a gap referred to the band gap energy. The band
gap energy for the TiO2 catalyst chosen for the removal of VOCs is 3.2 eV. In order to activate the
photocatalyst, a light source providing photons of the correct energy needs to illuminate the catalyst
so that the catalyst will absorb the energy supplied so that electrons can cross the band gap from the
valence band to the conductance, also known as photoexcitation. When the electron is transferred
from the valence band, a positive hole remains and thus it can act as an oxidising agent. [9] The
electron-hole pair can recombine and lose energy, or it can initiate a catalytic reaction. As a result of
TiO2 having a band gap of 3.2 eV, the energy required to achieve photoexcitation can be achieved by
a light source with a wavelength of less than 387 nm. For the most part, this falls into the UV region
of light, ranging from UV-A (400nm-315nm), UV-B (315nm-280nm) and UV-C (280nm-180nm). The
light source for our design was chosen to be UV-A with a peak wavelength of 365 nm. Reasoning for
this choice is that the photons of light will still have enough energy to cause photoexcitation even
though they will have less energy than UV-B or UV-C light sources. The higher energy sources such as
UV-C will enhance the photocatalytic activity of the catalyst and therefore have a positive effect in
terms of conversion of VOCs, however, the excess energy will also lead to heating of the materials and
the energy of the light itself may have more of an aging effect of the materials of the reactor and
increase maintenance costs [10]. In addition to this, these adverse effects could also affect the life
time of the catalyst and therefore impact the photocatalytic effect.

The catalyst support is an important choice for this process as it is very important in enabling the
catalyst to contact the VOCs in order for photocatalytic oxidation to occur. For this design, a titanium
mesh was chosen to support the catalyst. Modularity of the design helped with the choice of catalyst
support in that titanium mesh can provide versatility in design in that it is highly flexible and easy to
design and fabricate. In addition to his, because of the modular design, each module will be relatively
small and so a titanium mesh will have a large open surface area whilst maintaining a large level of
surface area for the TiO2 catalyst. This will allow greater illumination within the reactor compared to
other potential supports along with a large amount of surface area. When the titanium mesh is
prepared correctly by anodizing it followed by dip-coating using the sol-gel method, there is strong
adherence of the TiO2 particles to the titanium mesh. [11]This strong adherence will be beneficial as
it will help to minimise the loss of catalyst as air flows through the reactor.