Photocatalytic degradation of pharmaceutical contaminants in water and wastewater

New technologies are under development for environmental applications. Photocatalysts have a potential for water and wastewater treatment as a green technology because they work using sun as a free source of energy. Pharmaceutical contaminants are growing because of increasing the use of drugs. Therefore, in this research, pharmaceutical contaminants that are degraded using photocatalysts are categorized into Antibiotics, Therapeutic hormones, Analgesics, β -Blockers and By-product and metabolites. At each category, name of drugs, concentration of drugs, photocatalyst including active phase and promoters, type of radiation and maximum degradation efficiency were summarized in recent researches. Drug concentrations are in the range of 0.8-800 ppm. Degradation efficiencies are in the range of 35-95% for visible light and 54 -100% for UV. Most of the researchers use TiO2 as an active phase and ZnO has the second place in active phase. Most photocatalyst promoters include components such as Ba, Garaphen, In, Zn, W, Fe, Bi, Au, Zr, Ag, Sn.

کلیدواژه ها:

Photocatalyst ، Pharmaceuticals contaminants ، Water treatment ، Wastewater treatment