Removal of Contaminants of Emerging Concern from a Wastewater Effluent by Solar-Driven Heterogeneous Photocatalysis: A Case Study of Pharmaceuticals

Abstract The occurrence of emerging micropollutants (pharmaceuticals, pesticides, personal care products, industrial compounds, etc.) in the environment is considered a major threat to human health and aquatic ecosystems. These enter through anthropogenic actions have been identified surface, ground, waste, even drinking water, quantities ranging from ng L ?1 µg . Currently, pollution global water cycle with persistent organic pollutants remains one challenges twenty-first century. Most these substances are only partially removed by conventional wastewater treatment plants. Particularly, considerable amounts pharmaceuticals used veterinary medicine, which not efficiently during treatments subsequently continuously freshwater systems agricultural crops. Accordingly, we evaluated effectivity TiO 2 as photocatalyst tandem Na S O 8 an oxidant for effluent polluted pharmaceutical (atenolol, carbamazepine, clarithromycin, erythromycin, irbesartan, ketoprofen) residues. Results show that use solar heterogeneous photocatalysis means band-gap semiconductor materials, especially combination strong such , significantly enhances their disappearance effluent. However, selected slow degradation compared pure indicating dissolved salts carbon noticeably slows down efficiency treatment. A single first-order model satisfactorily explains photocatalytic compounds studied both, wastewater. In case effluent, highest DT 50 values were observed macrolides (13 16 min erythromycin respectively), while other showed below 10 min. This methodology has notorious interest some areas Mediterranean basin shortage, SE Spain, where more than 3000 h sunlight per year recovered.