The presence of pharmaceutically active compounds in water systems is of growing concern. While research is being conducted to elucidate the effects of long-term exposure to humans, it is important to develop viable treatment methods. Advanced oxidation processes are an effective option to treat water contaminated with pharmaceuticals, especially photocatalysis. It has been shown that photocatalytic processes are enhanced by adsorption, i.e. the target contaminant is degraded more efficiently when it is sorbed to the photocatalyst. However, one of the most commonly used photocatalysts- titanium dioxide- has a low sorption capacity at pH values typical of many source waters. In this work, we improve upon the adsorption behavior of titanium dioxide (TiO2) by synthesizing it in conjunction with aluminum oxide (Al2O3) at varying Al2O3:TiO2 ratios using the sol-gel process and study the adsorption and photocatalysis behavior of the antibiotic ciprofloxacin. The synthesized photocatalysts have higher surface area than commercially available Degussa TiO2 (~300 m2/g vs 42 m2/g) and result in better ciprofloxacin removal. As indicated in the figure, adsorption is highly dependent on oxide mineral characteristics and pH. This is due to the zwitterionic nature of ciprofloxacin and the surface charges of TiO2 (p.z.c. = 6.1) and Al2O3 (p.z.c. = 8.5). We also present results of ciprofloxacin photooxidation using these unsupported photocatalysts and those synthesized as immobilized thin films.

Adsorption and photocatalysis of ciprofloxacin using alumina-titania particles synthesized via sol-gel process

249th National Meeting (2015)

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