Nowadays, water crisis caused by insufficient water supply and pollution leads to several problems. Ca. 1.1 billion people worldwide suffer from poor access to water, and 2.7 billion experience water scarcity for at least one month per year. In this drastic scenario, treating wastewater contaminated by different pollutants is of environmental and commercial importance and urgently requires fast and highly efficient solutions. Heterogeneous photocatalysis has emerged as an interesting strategy for its ability to degrade mixtures of pollutants without the addition of chemical oxidants under mild conditions. Photocatalytic processes are less effective when used to treat trace concentrations of pollutants in a large volume of contaminated matrices due to large reactor sizes, limited light penetration, high energy cost, and difficulties in recycling photocatalysts. To facilitate degradation of traces of pollutants, some composites combine high adsorption capacity and photoreactivity. In addition, an unavoidable challenge is to develop sustainable and efficient TiO2-free photocatalytic systems since TiO2 has been recognized as a carcinogenic substance. We present our results related to the development of photoactive materials obtained by immobilizing bismuth oxyhalides (BiOX, where X is Cl, Br, and I), innovative adsorptive photocatalysts, on eco-friendly floating supports (loofah, LECA). BiOX are able to concentrate on their surface different pollutants (e.g., dyes, drugs, polyphenols) also in the dark and quantitatively degrade them after exposure to solar light irradiation. The studied samples almost entirely degrade the selected model pollutant after the photocatalytic test under irradiation. Figure 1 summarizes some results obtained on a sample of 3 wt.% BiOBr on loofah in experiments of pollutant abatement under solar light irradiation. These evidences open the view toward the future use of these innovative systems in real applications, acting as a bridge between environmental protection and sustainability.

Investigating the role of bismuth oxyhalides immobilized onto environmentally friendly floating devices in wastewater remediation

Where thousands of chemistry professionals meet to share ideas and advance scientific and technical knowledge. Spring 2023 abstracts, posters, and presentations will launch at the end of March.

ACS Spring 2023

The official archive and repository for all ACS Meetings & Expositions abstracts and select posters or presentations.