Copyright © 2012 Gui Bing Hong and Chih Ming Ma. This is an open access article distributed under the Creative Commons Attribution License, which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited.

Abstract

Titanium dioxide (TiO₂) has been extensively studied with regard to its application as the physical sunblock in sunscreen or other cosmetic products, as well as in environmental remediation processes. In this study, the Taguchi method was applied to determine the optimum gaseous DCM (dichloromethane) by Pt-TiO₂ with different Pt contents. An orthogonal array (L32) experimental design that allows for the simultaneous investigation of the variations of six parameters (light source, catalyst type, initial concentration, retention time, photointensity, and relative humidity) was employed to determine the optimum levels. The value of photointensity was not at a confidence interval. According to the response values and an analysis of variance (ANOVA), an experimental result of 34.7 as the optimum condition is forecast. Although the predetermination of 34.7 is not equal to the experimental value, it is contained within the 90% confidence interval (25.8, 43.6).