Photocatalysis of β-blockers – An overview

Abstract

Photocatalysis is one of the most effective advanced oxidation processes to remove residual pharmaceuticals from the aquatic environment. b-Blockers are the group of pharmaceuticals commonly found in the environment and are showing potential risk to the aquatic and terrestrial organisms. This paper provides an overview of different photocatalytic procedures found in the literature for the abatement of b-blockers. ª 2014 The Authors. Production and hosting by Elsevier B.V. on behalf of King Saud University. This is an open access article under the CC BY-NC-ND license (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/3.0/).

Propranolol degradation through processes based on the generation of hydroxyl free radical

“…Its presence in aquatic ecosystems has been associated with higher mortality rates and reduced heart rates in zebrafish and medaka embryos (Finn et al 2012), a decrease in length of sea urchin larvae (Ribeiro et al 2015), a decrease in mussels' feeding rates, gill activity (Solé et al 2010) and loss of orientation, reduced appetite, decreased hatching capacity and significant bioaccumulation of PRO in plasma of fathead minnows (Pimephales promelas). Overall, β-blockers are commonly found in the environment showing a potential risk for aquatic and terrestrial organisms at very low concentrations (Kwon & Lee 2019;Marothu et al 2019). These types of compounds are not easy to be degraded by conventional biological treatments and are soluble in water and hence are found in the environment (wastewater and freshwaters) for a long time (Michael et al 2013;Patel et al 2020;Verma & Haritash 2020).…”

“…These types of compounds are not easy to be degraded by conventional biological treatments and are soluble in water and hence are found in the environment (wastewater and freshwaters) for a long time (Michael et al 2013;Patel et al 2020;Verma & Haritash 2020). Therefore, in recent years, advanced oxidation processes (AOP) have emerged as methods capable of potentially transforming these compounds into innocuous substances that have been tested in the elimination of β-blockers in water, as such is the case of processes by photocatalysis (Marothu et al 2019;Giordani et al 2021), electro-Fenton (EF) and photoelectro-Fenton (PEF) (Isarain-Chávez et al 2011;Nsubuga et al 2019), UV/hydrogen peroxide (UV/H 2 O 2 ) and UV/persulfate (UV/PDS) (Yang et al 2019). Their oxidation mechanisms are based on the generation of highly reactive free radicals, such as the hydroxyl radical (•OH) (Stefan 2017).…”

Lanthanides Effects on TiO2 Photocatalysts

“…Therefore, the interaction of these two crystalline structures often has better photocatalytic results than when they are purely applied, which is possibly due to the visible light absorption by the rutile, which serves as a photosensitizer for the anatase phase. An example of this phase interaction is the commercial P25® titanium dioxide from Degussa Evonik, which has a composition of 80% anatase and 20% rutile, exhibiting high photocatalytic activity [32,38,39].…”

A novel Sm doped Cr2O3 sesquioxide-decorated MWCNTs heterostructured Fenton-like with sonophotocatalytic activities under visible light irradiation

“…Eventually, they will arrive in aqueous environment and water resources posing potential health threats to living organisms (Chakraborty et al, 2017). Recently, the occurrence of β-blockers has been repeatedly reported in the effluents of many (WWTP) around the world (Marothu et al, 2019). The database of APIs in the Environment of the German Federal Environment Agency records over 1750 entries about the presence of metoprolol in different water bodies worldwide in the year 2018.…”