Issue 18, 2021, Issue in Progress

Tetracycline catalytic photodegradation with mesoporous phosphated TiO2: characterization, process optimization and degradation pathway

Abstract

Concern about the effect of tetracycline (TC) on the ecosystem has been increasing due to its endurance and low decomposition. Photocatalysts have attracted extensive interest as alternatives to other ordinary wastewater treatment methods. A nanosized mesoporous phosphated TiO2 (P-TiO2) photocatalyst was fabricated to degrade TC under Xe lamp irradiation. The TC degradation and COD removal rate reached 98.97% and 79.16% within 30 min. Photocatalysts were characterized by SEM, HRTEM, BET, DRS, XRD, XPS and FT-IR techniques. 31 experiments were designed to identify the best conditions for photocatalytic degradation of TC by response surface methodology (RSM) based on a central composite design (CCD). 6 key operating parameters were selected to study their interrelationships by CCD design. Based on the experimental data and ANOVA, the coefficient of determination (R2), the values of “Prob > F” and F-value were determined to be 0.9692, 0.002 and 7.87, respectively, which demonstrated that the model is significant. And the excellent correlation between the predicted and actual values also provided good confidence in the model. To achieve a higher removal rate of TC under appropriate and more economical experimental conditions, the optimum values of P-loading on TiO2, concentration of P-TiO2, irradiation time, photo intensity, pH and concentration of TC should be set to 17.45 wt%, 1.00 g L−1, 40.39 min, 5 A, 7, 29.93 mg L−1, respectively, in which the degradation of TC can reach 99.16%. Furthermore, the intermediates of TC verified by GC-MS analysis were mainly chains and rings. A possible pathway of photodegradation was also proposed.

Graphical abstract: Tetracycline catalytic photodegradation with mesoporous phosphated TiO2: characterization, process optimization and degradation pathway

Supplementary files

Article information

Article type
Paper
Submitted
20 Jan 2021
Accepted
10 Mar 2021
First published
16 Mar 2021
This article is Open Access
Creative Commons BY-NC license

RSC Adv., 2021,11, 10975-10985

Tetracycline catalytic photodegradation with mesoporous phosphated TiO2: characterization, process optimization and degradation pathway

H. Yuan, Q. Su, Y. Wang, J. Li, B. Liu, Y. Li and P. Wu, RSC Adv., 2021, 11, 10975 DOI: 10.1039/D1RA00516B

This article is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 3.0 Unported Licence. You can use material from this article in other publications, without requesting further permission from the RSC, provided that the correct acknowledgement is given and it is not used for commercial purposes.

To request permission to reproduce material from this article in a commercial publication, please go to the Copyright Clearance Center request page.

If you are an author contributing to an RSC publication, you do not need to request permission provided correct acknowledgement is given.

If you are the author of this article, you do not need to request permission to reproduce figures and diagrams provided correct acknowledgement is given. If you want to reproduce the whole article in a third-party commercial publication (excluding your thesis/dissertation for which permission is not required) please go to the Copyright Clearance Center request page.

Read more about how to correctly acknowledge RSC content.

Social activity

Spotlight

Advertisements