Article ID Journal Published Year Pages File Type
577072 Journal of Hazardous Materials 2013 8 Pages PDF
Abstract

•Photoactivity of TiO2 modified with metal NP evaluated in the degradation of trimethoprim.•The modification of TiO2 by gold and silver increases the mineralization of organic matter up to 80%.•The first study on the photocatalytic degradation of trimethoprim using TiO2 modified with metal NP.

The effect of Au, Ag, Cu and Ni nanoparticles deposited on TiO2-P25 was studied on the photodegradation of trimethoprim, a commonly used antibiotic. The synthesized materials were characterized by ICP, EDS, XRD, BET, UV–vis, TEM and TPR. The metal loading was 0.5 wt.% and the average particle size was about 2 nm in all the studied samples. The deposition of metallic particles on TiO2-P25 produces an enhancement of the activity of the bare semiconductor; when the degradation of trimethoprim was carried out by pure TiO2-P25, the mineralization reached only 50% of the organic matter, while by using metallic nanoparticles deposited on TiO2-P25, the mineralization of organic matter increased up to 80% for the same reaction conditions and reaction time. The evaluation of the photocatalytic activity was made for solutions containing trimethoprim in concentrations of 40 ppm under UV light irradiation using a lamp with primary emission at 254 nm and 2.2 mW/cm2. It is shown that the ability of the photocatalyst to mineralize trimethoprim depends on the electron affinity and the electronegativity of the deposited metal.

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