In this research, the production possibility of TiC-Al2O3 nanocomposite, as a useful ceramic from commercially pure TiO2, aluminum powder and carbon black has been investigated. ROUTILE (TiO2) with carbon black and aluminum were placed in a high energy ball mill and sampled during different milling times. Then, the activated powders were synthesized at different temperatures in an atmosphere control tube furnace. Our results show that using this method has decreased the synthesizing temperature to 1000-1250oC by increasing the milling time. Also the width of X-ray patterns peaks, had made it apparent that, the size of produced TiC crystals was in order of nanometer. Furthermore it was detected that the lattice parameter deviated slightly from the standard size.

Controlled precipitation method was used to prepare of TiO2/ZnS/BTB photocatalyst. The ZnS and bromo thymol blue (BTB) dye were used as modifier and sensitizer agents, respectively. The composition of TiO2/ZnS/BTB photocatalyst was characterized by EDX spectra, FT-IR spectra and SEM images. The XRD patterns showed the phases of ROUTILE and cubic for TiO2 and ZnS, respectively, in composite of TiO2/ZnS/BTB. The diffuse reflectance UV/VIS spectra were used to estimate of band-gap energies of samples. The band-gap energies of TiO2, TiO2/ZnS and TiO2/ZnS/BTB were obtained as 3.03, 2.76 and 2.68 eV, respectively. The TiO2/ZnS/BTB photocatalyst was used in photodegradation process of para-nitrophenol (PNP). The order of photocatalytic activity was obtained as: TiO2/ZnS/BTB > TiO2/ZnS > TiO2 that matched with the band-gap energies. The degradation efficiency of >95 % was obtained at optimized conditions of pH 6, 1.0 g/L of photocatalyst, 10 mg/L of PNP in time 180 min. The kinetic rate constants of Langmuir–Hinshelwood were decreased with increasing of initial concentration of PNP. Furthermore, the TOC result indicated the degradation of 90 % PNP in photodegradation reaction.