engleski

Solar active nanocomposite photocatalysts for the removal of pharmaceuticals

Photocatalytic Advanced Oxidation Technologies (PAOTs) are destructive methods for the treatment of water containing various recalcitrant pollutants, which employ semiconductor (nano)particles and solar or artificial UV irradiation. They are considered to be no- or low- waste generation technologies, making them advantageous over common water treatment technologies. Although PAOTs using (nano)-TiO2 are proved to be eco- and cost- effective, technical challenges such as agglomeration during and separation after the treatment, as well as limitation to absorb irradiation energy in broader incident radiation range, present current challenges within the field. In this work the activity of nanocomposite photocatalytic materials based on nano-TiO2 and iron-exchanged zeolite (FeZSM5), immobilized on glass support, under simulated solar irradiation was studied for degradation of diclofenac (DCF). DCF is a common non-steroidal anti-inflammatory drug and one of the most widely available drugs in the world that showed adverse effects in different organisms even at very low concentrations. The influence of studied photocatalytic process parameters on the system performance was investigated using design of experiments in combination with response surface modeling. The nanocomposite thin films showed higher efficiency than nano-TiO2 films in terms of DCF conversion, as well as regarding mineralization, improvement of biodegradability and lowering of toxicity of DCF model solution. Besides, the films stability tested throughout consecutive runs provided satisfactory results.

solar photocatalysis ; TiO2-FeZ catalyst ; diclofenac ; degradation pathway ; biodegradability ; toxicity

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