Immobilized TiO2 for the photocatalytic mineralization of emerging pollutants

This research work describes the UV photo-catalytic degradation[1] of a mixture of five emerging pollutants (carbamazepine, diclofenac, benzophenone-3, benzophenone-4 and triton x-100), selected for their ecotoxicity concern [2-3] as well as for the variety of their chemical functional groups. The photocatalytic treatments have been carried out both in deionized (DW) and tap water (TW), and by using a homemade TiO2 supported on quartz fiber produced through a sol-gel method (TiO2-qf), in comparison with the Aeroperl P25/20 purchased from Evonik (TiO2-mp). Furthermore it has also been explored the reuse of the TiO2 -qf. The effectiveness of the photocatalytic treatments have been determined following the disappearance of the parent molecules by HPLC and evaluating the degree of mineralization through the Total Organic Carbon (TOC) analysis. The figure shows a SEM image of the quartz fiber coated with TiO2 in the background, and the comparison of residual TOC at the end of the treatments (240 min). The mineralization process was slighlty faster with TiO2-qz than TiO2-mp, and significatively faster in DW than in TW. [1] S. Horikoshi, N. Watanabe, H. Onishi, H. Hidaka, N. Serpone Appl. Catal., B: Environ., 2002, 37, 117-129. [2] B. Ferrari, N. Paxéus, R. Lo Giudice, A. Pollio, J. Garric Ecotoxicol. Environ. Saf., 2003, 55, 359-370. [3] Z. F. Zhang, N. Q. Ren, Y. F. Li, T. Kunisue, D. W. Gao, K. Kannan Environ. Sci. Technol., 2011, 45, 3909-3916.