Conventional and emerging technologies for removal of antibiotics from wastewater
JOURNAL OF HAZARDOUS MATERIALS
Authors: Phoon, Bao Lee; Ong, Chong Cheen; Saheed, Mohamed Shuaib Mohamed; Show, Pau-Loke; Chang, Jo-Shu; Ling, Tau Chuan; Lam, Su Shiung; Juan, Joon Ching
Abstract
Antibiotics and pharmaceuticals related products are used to enhance public health and quality of life. The wastewater that is produced from pharmaceutical industries still contains noticeable amount of antibiotics, and this has remained one of the major environmental problems facing public health. The conventional wastewater remediation approach employed by the pharmaceutical industries for the antibiotics wastewater removal is unable to remove the antibiotics completely. Besides, municipal and livestock wastewater also contain unmetabolized antibiotics released by human and animal, respectively. The antibiotic found in wastewater leads to antibiotic resistance challenges, also emergence of superbugs. Currently, numerous technological approaches have been developed to remove antibiotics from the wastewater. Therefore, it was imperative to critically review the weakness and strength of these current advanced technological approaches in use. Besides, the conventional methods for removal of antibiotics such as Klavaroti et al., Homem and Santos also discussed. Although, membrane treatment is discovered as the ultimate choice of approach, to completely remove the antibiotics, while the filtered antibiotics are still retained on the membrane. This study found, hybrid processes to be the best solution antibiotics removal from wastewater. Nevertheless, real-time monitoring system is also recommended to ascertain that, wastewater is cleared of antibiotics.
Graphitic carbon nitride/SmFeO(3)composite Z-scheme photocatalyst with high visible light activity
NANOTECHNOLOGY
Authors: Chouchene, Bilel; Gries, Thomas; Balan, Lavinia; Medjahdi, Ghouti; Schneider, Raphael
Abstract
In this work, novel heterostructured photocatalysts associating graphitic carbon nitride (g-CN) and SmFeO(3)were prepared via a mixing-ultrasonication process. Structural, optical and morphological characterizations demonstrate that the interfacial junction between g-CN and SmFeO(3)is well established for all g-CN/SmFeO(3)composites prepared with g-CN:SmFeO(3)weight ratio of 20:80, 50:50 and 80:20. The g-CN/SmFeO3(80:20) composite exhibits the highest photocatalytic activity for the degradation of pollutants like the Orange II dye and the tetracycline hydrochloride antibiotic under visible light irradiation. This high photocatalytic activity originates from the enhanced light absorption over the whole visible region compared to pure g-CN and from the improved separation and transfer of photogenerated electron/hole pairs as demonstrated by photoluminescence and photocurrent measurements. A Z-scheme charge carrier transfer mechanism was demonstrated for the photocatalytic reactions. The g-CN/SmFeO3(80:20) catalyst was also demonstrated to be stable and can be reused up to six times without significant alteration of the activity.