Examination and research development of new catalysts for removing pharmaceuticals from water

天然水体中药物和内分泌干扰化合物（EDCs）的存在引起了越来越多的关注，因为它们频繁出现并持续存在于水生生态系统中，即使是微量浓度也会对水生生物的健康和安全构成威胁。众所周知，传统的水处理工艺通常不足以消除这些持久性污染物。研究表明，约64%的EDCs去除率低于50%，而9%的EDCs完全不被传统的生物处理工艺去除。因此，开发有效和可持续的去除这些新出现的污染物的方法是至关重要的。二氧化钛是最广泛用于去除水中有机污染物的光催化剂。然而，与TiO2相比，ZnO对有机污染物的去除效率更高，已经有一些研究报道。氧化锌光催化剂（ZnO）具有带隙宽、无毒、成本低等特点，是一种很有前途的光催化脱除EDCs的方法。近年来，人们在提高ZnO的光催化性能方面做了大量的努力，通过掺杂元素和缩小带隙来使其在可见光下被激活。然而，任何缩小半导体带隙的努力都会导致氧化还原电位的降低，以及消除和矿化的效率。作为一种替代策略，本研究考虑了表面改性以提高吸附和光催化氧化的效率。预计氧化锌的表面氟化也会增强对新出现污染物的光催化降解。通过与daguattechnology公司建立合作伙伴关系，该研究正试图合成一种具有高表面积和稳定性的双功能分层吸附剂/光催化剂，以低能耗从水中去除EDCs。为此，本研究将设计一个管状光反应器，对水中广泛存在的抗生素磺胺甲恶唑进行去除和矿化实验

The presence of pharmaceuticals and endocrine disrupting compounds (EDCs) in natural waters has raisedincreasing concern due to their frequent appearance and persistence in aquatic ecosystem and the threat tohealth and safety of aquatic life, even at trace concentrations. Conventional water treatment processes areknown to be generally inadequate for the elimination of these persistent contaminants. Studies havedemonstrated that about 64% of EDCs are removed by less than 50% while 9% are not removed at all byconventional biological treatment processes. Therefore, the development of efficient and sustainable removalmethods for these emerging contaminants is essential. TiO2 is the most widely used photocatalyst for removalof organic contaminants from water. However, the higher efficiencies of ZnO compared to TiO2 forelimination of organic contaminant has been reported in several studies. Photocatalytic removal of EDCs byusing zinc oxide photocatalyst (ZnO) is a promising process due to the unique characteristics of thisphotocatalyst such as wide band gap, non-toxicity and low cost. Recently, a considerable effort has been madeto improve the photocatalytic performance of ZnO by doping with elements and narrowing band gap in order tobe activated under visible light irradiation. However, any effort to narrow the band gap of semiconductors leadsto the reduction of redox potential, as well as the efficiencies of elimination and mineralization. As analternative strategy, surface modification is considered for enhancing the efficiency of adsorption andphotocatalytic oxidation in this research. It is expected that surface fluorination of ZnO also enhances thephotocatalytic degradation of emerging contaminants. Through building a partnership with the DaguaTechnology Inc., this research is attempting to synthesize a dual functional hierarchical adsorbent/photocatalystwith high surface area and stability for removing EDCs from water with low energy consumption. For thispurpose, a tubular photoreactor will be designed in this study to perform experiments for elimination andmineralization of sulfamethoxazole as widely detected antibiotic in water, under extremely