Photocatalytic Degradation of Pharmaceutical Micro-pollutants Using ZnO

Overview

Journal Environ Sci Pollut Res Int

Publisher Springer

Specialties Environmental Health
Toxicology

Date 2019 Jan 11

PMID 30628002

Citations 5

Authors

Rana Sabouni

Hassan Gomaa

Affiliations

Soon will be listed here.

Abstract

This research paper presents the results of an experimental investigation of the degradation of three different contaminants including progesterone (PGS), ibuprofen (IBU), and naproxen (NAP) using ZnO as the photocatalyst and ultraviolet (UV) light as a source for catalysts activation. Two operating parameters, namely, catalyst loading and initial concentration of contaminants, were tested in a batch photocatalytic reactor. To demonstrate the large-scale applications, experiments were also conducted in a submerged membrane photocatalytic reactor. It has proven that ZnO photocatalyst degraded the three contaminants very efficiently under almost all the studied experimental conditions, with efficiency rates of 92.3, 94.5, and 98.7 % for PSG, IBU, and NAP, respectively. The photodegradation kinetics study was performed to calculate the reaction rate constant, which is found to follow pseudo-first order kinetics. The membrane photocatalytic reactor was efficient to remove pollutants and it is observed that the degradation rate increases with increasing the membrane oscillation frequency approaching that of the stirred reactor.

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