UV-Vis activated CuO/CuS/WO 3 @PANI heterostructure for photocatalytic removal of pharmaceutical active compounds from wastewater Ioan Alexandru Enesca and Luminita Isac Transilvania University of Brasov, Department of Product Design, Mechatronics and Environment, Eroilor 29 Street, 500036, Brasov, Romania Pharmaceutically active compounds, such as tetracycline, ciprofloxacin, triclosan, carbamazepine, salicylic acid, ibuprofen and sulfamethazine, etc., are helpful to cure human diseases but the pollution from metabolized or partially metabolized pharmaceutical wastes is already recognized as a hazard. With the rapid development of industrialization, the presence of organic pollutants in water and environment is now an important problem, creating hazardous threats to the ecological system [1,2] . The present work describes the development of CuO/CuS/WO 3 @PANI heterostructure and his application on penicillin G and amoxycillin photocatalytic removal from wastewater. The heterostructure was developed based on a three-step sol-gel method using PANI as initial substrate. The XRD analysis indicate that the semiconductor exhibits crystalline structure after the thermal treatment. The crystallite sizes vary from 69.2 A for CuS up to 94.7 A for CuO. The morphology consists mostly on granular structures and the EDS indicate a uniform surface dispersion of the elements. The photocatalytic experiments in the presence of UV-VIS light indicate that the CuO/CuS/WO 3 @PANI exhibits superior photocatalytic abilities to remove both penicillin G and amoxycillin, comparing with bare semiconductors. CuO/CuS/WO 3 @PANI sample is able to remove 75% of penicillin G and 80% of amoxycillin in the first 10h of exposure to light irradiance. The photocatalytic reaction rate of CuO/CuS/WO 3 @PANI is 1.4x faster than that of CuO/CuS/WO 3 and almost 4x faster than that of CuS/WO 3 .
References 1. Tahreen, A. et al. (2020) 'Role of electrocoagulation in Wastewater treatment: A developmental review.', J. Water Proc. Eng., 37, 101440. doi:10.1016/j.jwpe.2020.101440. 2. Guo, W. et al. (2020) 'Surface Modification of Bentonite With Polymer Brushes and Its Application as an Efficient Adsorbent for the Removal of Hazardous Dye Orange I.' Nanomaterials, 10, 1112. doi:10.3390/nano10061112.
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