The photodegradation of the model compounds Quinol, an aromatic organic compound and Acid blue FFS, an acid dye of chemical class Triphenylmethane was studied by using illumination with UV lamp of light intensity 250W. TiO2 and TiO2 doped with Boron and Nitrogen was used as catalyst. The sol-gel method was followed with titanium isopropoxide as precursor and doping was done using Boron and Nitrogen. In photocatalytic degradation, TiO2 and doped TiO2 dosage, UV illumination time and initial concentration of the compounds were changed and examined in order to determine the optimal experimental conditions. Operational time was optimized for 360 min. The optimum dosage of TiO2 and BN doped TiO2 was obtained to be 2 mgL-1 and 2.5 mgL-1 respectively. Maximum degradation % for quinol and Blue FFS acid dye was 78 and 95 respectively, at the optimum dosage of BN-doped TiO2 catalyst. It was 10 and 4% higher than when undoped TiO2 catalyst was used.

In the present study Sisal fiber obtained from the leaves of Agave sisalana has been chosen to validate its viability as an adsorbent for the removal of Nickel from aqueous solutions. The material was also surface modified and its effect on adsorption of Nickel was also studied. Agave sisalana fiber was found to be a cheap and effective adsorbent doing away with the need to activate the material therby reducing processing cost. The equilibrium studies indicated that the adsorption capacity of raw fiber and the surface modified fiber was 8.66 and 9.77 mg/g respectively with the Langmuir isotherm describing the adsorption phenomena better than the Freundlich and Temkin isotherm. The adsorption was found to be exothermic from the thermodynamic studies and the kinetics showed that the adsorption phenomena were second order.