An Eco-Friendly Solution for the Efficient Elimination of Pentoxifylline from Water: An Operational Performance Investigation

Abstract

In recent years, more and more pollutants (including pharmaceuticals, personal care products, pesticides, herbicides, hormones, chemicals) are detected in the aquatic environment. Even if they are encountered in very low concentrations, the toxicological data reveal that they represent a major risk both for the water living organisms and for human beings. Moreover, an important resistance to the classical methods applied at wastewater treatment plants characterizes them. Aeration, coagulation, flocculation, sedimentation, filtration, adsorption, oxidation, activated sludge treatments are often either insufficient or completely ineffective. To overcome these drawbacks, many researches were dedicated to the development of new effective techniques for the removal of these water pollutants. Advanced oxidation methods are widely reported as being of the most efficient ones. In this article, we investigate the utility of the photocatalysis as a sustainable alternative for the enhanced elimination of an emergent water micropollutant. We evaluate here the impact of several parameters (catalyst type and concentration, contaminant concentration, radiant flux intensity) on the process efficiency. The targeted compound involved in the experiments was the pentoxifylline (a drug used in the treatment of diseases such as diabetic neuropathy, osteoradionecrosis or hepatic fibrogenesis). The registered pollutant removal rate under the selected reaction conditions (photocatalyst type: ZnO; photocatalyst concentration: 0.5 g/L; incident light flux: 9.52 mW/cm2; natural pH) reached values near to 100 % providing new insights on the viability and the efficiency of the evaluated methodology.

Zn/La Mixed Oxides Prepared by Coprecipitation: Synthesis, Characterization and Photocatalytic Studies

“…It was found that the CA removal in the absence of catalyst is of only less than 9% after 60 min and 17% after an exposure time of 180 min. Similar results were previously reported in other papers [45][46][47].…”