Pratiwi, Qurry Mahdania, Pir Nanda Ningsih, Adedio Daniel Situmeang, Yuansyah Dhaniar, Lydia Rohmawati
Lack of public awareness and concern regarding the problem of plastic waste can impact the environment and living creatures in the waters because, over a long time, plastic will decompose into microplastic particles. Polyethylene is one microplastic type most commonly found in plastic beverage packaging. For this reason, it is necessary to handle microplastic waste, so this research aims to produce TiO2 nanoparticles that can degrade microplastics through photocatalytic activity under UV irradiation. This material can be extracted from Tulungagung Ilmenite sand using the leaching method, the results of which are applied photocatalytically using ultrasonification and followed by UV irradiation for 4 hours, then characterized by FTIR, SEM and calculating the degradation percentage using the gravimetric method. The analysis results show a new cluster in the formation of hydroxyl, carbonyl, and carbon-hydrogen groups. In addition, the rate of microplastic degradation increased along with the increase in catalyst mass, where 0.0015 mg of catalyst gave the highest degradation value, namely 77% after 4 hours. In this way, the synthesized TiO2 nanoparticles can be used as a candidate for a material that can minimize the problem of microplastic waste in water. © 2025 Author(s).
Physics Department, Faculty of Mathematics and Natural Science, Surabaya State University, Ketintang, Gayungan, Surabaya, 60231, Indonesia
