Analysis of Photocatalyst Degradation of Erythromycin with Titanium Dioxide Nanoparticle Modified by Silver

Document Type : Research Article

Authors

School of Environment, College of Engineering, University of Tehran, Tehran, I.R. IRAN

Abstract

Advanced Oxidation Procedure (AOPs) and semi-conductive photo-responsive Titanium Dioxide (TiO2) catalysts have proven to be effective in degradation of antibiotic pollutants in aqueous matrices despite the minor issues that currently exist for their industrial application. As to address the current catalytic inefficiencies, silver doped TiO2 nanoparticles have been synthesized from commercial Degussa TiO2 in order to enhance the efficiency of TiO2 photocatalyst in comparison with the commercial TiO2 product in degradation of Erythromycin antibiotic and also to make degradation plausible in the visible irradiation range through optical precipitation. XRD, FE-SEM and DRS methods were implemented to characterize the as-synthesized nanoparticles. The efficiency of the as-synthesized photocatalyst was also investigated to measure the effect of silver doping and also to optimize operational parameters under UV irradiation. As with the improvement in photocatalytic activities, degradation efficiency at optimal operational conditions under UV irradiation was proved to be 76.8% for Ag/TiO2 while commercial TiO2 exhibited a 43.7% efficiency under the same conditions. The effect of strong oxidant like H2O2 was further examined through the addition of H2O2 to the reaction medium and prove to have 89.3% efficiency for Erythromycin degradation at optimal H2O2 concentrations. Positive results from UV experiments as well as H2O2 experiments and the minor antibiotic activity of Erythromycin degradation products exhibits Ag/TiO2 to be a promising future candidate for the treatment of Erythromycin containing Pharmaceutical wastewater.

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References

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