Mineralization of emerging pollutant mixtures by slurry and immobilized TiO2 photocatalysts

Pharmaceuticals and personal care products (PPCPs) are nowadays considered in the wide class of emerging contaminants. Pharmaceuticals and their metabolites are often detected in water bodies in concentrations of μg or ng per liter. Nonetheless, they are characterized by high levels of toxicity, especially when present in pollutant mixtures. Due to their environmental impact on surface and wastewaters even after remediation treatments, in the last few years emerging contaminants have attracted the attention of the scientific community. In fact, they provoke serious risks both to aquatic and human life. Traditional techniques for environmental remediation are usually not feasible to completely remove these species, due to their chemical resistance. In this context, photocatalysis by TiO2 is studied, among the Advanced Oxidation Processes (AOPs), as an efficient technique for the removal of pollutants from atmospheric and aqueous environments, able to produce few and less hazardous intermediates and by-products and to achieve complete oxidation to harmless compounds such as H2O, CO2 and inorganic salts. Here, the photocatalytic degradation and mineralization by home-syntesized TiO2 of four emerging contaminants, both as single molecule and in their mixture was studied. Moreover, a TiO2-immobilized system was developed and its photocatalytic efficiency was tested.