Abdullah Muneeb, Iqbal Javed, Ur Rehman Muhammad Saif, Khalid Usman, Mateen Fahad, Arshad Salman Noshear, Al-Sehemi Abdullah G, Algarni Hamed, Al-Hartomy Omar A, Fazal Tahir
Institute of Chemical and Environmental Engineering (ICEE), Khwaja Fareed University of Engineering and Information Technology, Rahim Yar Khan, 64200, Pakistan.
Institute of Chemical and Environmental Engineering (ICEE), Khwaja Fareed University of Engineering and Information Technology, Rahim Yar Khan, 64200, Pakistan.
Chemosphere. 2023 Mar;317:137834. doi: 10.1016/j.chemosphere.2023.137834. Epub 2023 Jan 11.
The water pollution becomes a serious concern for the sustainability of ecosystems due to the existence of pharmaceutical products (ceftriaxone (CEF) antibiotic). Even in low concentration of CEF has lethal effects on ecosystem and human health. To remove CEF, TiO is considered as an effective and efficient nanoparticles, however its performance is reduced due to wider energy gap and rapid recombination of charge carriers. In this study, activated carbon based TiO (ACT-X) heterogeneous nanocomposites were synthesized to improve the intrinsic properties of TiO and their adsorption-photocatalytic performance for the removal of CEF. The characterization results revealed that ACT-X composites have slower recombination of charge carriers, lower energy band gap (3.05 eV), and better light absorption under visible region of light. From ACT-X composites, the ACT-4 photocatalyst has achieved highest photocatalytic degradation (99.6%) and COD removal up (99.2%). The results of radical scavengers showed that photocatalytic degradation of CEF is mainly occurred due to superoxide and hydroxyl radicals. Meanwhile, the reusability of ACT-4 up to five cycles shows more than 80% photocatalytic degradation, which make the process more economical. The highest experimental adsorption capacity is achieved up to 844.8 mg g using ACT-4. The favorable and multilayer heterogeneous adsorption is carried out according to the well-fitted data with pseudo-second-order and Freundlich models, respectively. These results indicate that the carbon-based TiO composites can be used as a green, stable, efficient, effective, reusable, renewable, and sustainable photocatalyst to eliminate the pharmaceutical pollutants (antibiotics) via adsorption and photocatalytic degradation processes.
由于药品（头孢曲松（CEF）抗生素）的存在，水污染已成为生态系统可持续性的一个严重问题。即使是低浓度的CEF也会对生态系统和人类健康产生致命影响。为了去除CEF，TiO被认为是一种有效且高效的纳米颗粒，然而由于其较宽的能带隙和载流子的快速复合，其性能会降低。在本研究中，合成了基于活性炭的TiO（ACT-X）多相纳米复合材料，以改善TiO的固有性能及其对CEF的吸附-光催化性能。表征结果表明，ACT-X复合材料的载流子复合较慢，能带隙较低（3.05 eV），并且在可见光区域具有更好的光吸收。在ACT-X复合材料中，ACT-4光催化剂实现了最高的光催化降解率（99.6%）和化学需氧量去除率（99.2%）。自由基清除剂的结果表明，CEF的光催化降解主要是由于超氧自由基和羟基自由基引起的。同时，ACT-4高达五个循环的可重复使用性表明光催化降解率超过80%，这使得该过程更具经济性。使用ACT-4时，最高实验吸附容量达到844.8 mg g。分别根据与伪二级模型和弗伦德里希模型拟合良好的数据进行了有利的多层多相吸附。这些结果表明，碳基TiO复合材料可作为一种绿色、稳定、高效、有效、可重复使用、可再生和可持续的光催化剂，通过吸附和光催化降解过程消除药物污染物（抗生素）。
