Photocatalytic degradation of paracetamol on TiO 2 nanoparticles and TiO 2 /cellulosic fiber under UV and sunlight irradiation

By Nabil Jallouli, K. Elghniji, H. Trabelsi, M. Ksibi. 2017

202 citations recorded by the source corpus.

Abstract In the present study, photocatalytic degradation of acetaminophen ((N-(4-hydroxyphe-nyl)acetamide)), an analgesic drug has been investigated in a batch reactor using TiO 2 P25 as a photocatalyst in slurry and under UV light. Using TiO 2 P25 nanoparticles, much faster photodegradation of paracetamol and effective mineralization occurred, more than 90% of 2.65 × 10 −4  M paracetamol was degraded under UV irradiation. Changes in pH values affected the adsorption and the photodegradation of paracetamol. pH 9.0 is found to be the optimum for the photodegradation of paracetamol. HPLC detected hydroquinone, benzoquinone, p-nitrophenol, and 1,2,4-trihydroxybenzene during the TiO 2 -assisted photodegradation of paracetamol among which some pathway products are disclosed for the first time. The results showed that TiO 2 suspension/UV system is more efficient than the TiO 2 /cellulosic fiber mode combined to solar light for the photocatalytic degradation of paracetamol. Nerveless the immobilization of TiO 2 showed many advantages over slurry system because it can enhance adsorption properties while allowing easy separation of the photocatalyst from the treated solution with improved reusable performance.

Subfields: Biomedical Engineering, Renewable Energy, Sustainability and the Environment

View Paper: https://www.semanticscholar.org/paper/33e4f38c3e7a7974a46e38f7dacdf1a08032bdda