PMMA-titania floating macrospheres for the photocatalytic remediation of agro-pharmaceutical wastewater

Water Sci Technol. 2017 Mar;75(5-6):1362-1369. doi: 10.2166/wst.2017.003.

Abstract

Antibiotics such as tetracycline are used on a large scale in agriculture, and can become concentrated in wastewater lagoons that are used in conjunction with confined animal feeding operations. Solar-illuminated titanium dioxide can be used to photocatalytically degrade aqueous tetracycline, but its application in a lagoon environment requires that the photocatalyst be supported on a macroscopic support material to prevent loss of the nanoscale photocatalyst into the environment. In this work, titanium dioxide was deposited within a porous poly(methyl methacrylate) film on the surface of floating 7.0 cm diameter acrylic spheres. Six of these floating spheres removed over 96% of the tetracycline in 3.5 L of 60 mg/L tetracycline in natural pond water during 24 hours of solar illumination. The durability of these spheres under long-term solar exposure was also investigated along with the amount of photocatalyst lost from the sphere surface during use. These macroscale floating composite spheres provide a new method for removing tetracycline from wastewater lagoons with minimal risk of being displaced in the environment due to the large size of the spheres.

Publication types

  • Research Support, Non-U.S. Gov't

MeSH terms

  • Acrylates / chemistry
  • Agriculture*
  • Animals
  • Biodegradation, Environmental / radiation effects
  • Catalysis / radiation effects
  • Light*
  • Pharmaceutical Preparations / analysis*
  • Polymethyl Methacrylate / chemistry*
  • Porosity
  • Silver / chemistry
  • Tetracycline / analysis
  • Time Factors
  • Titanium / chemistry
  • Wastewater / chemistry*

Substances

  • Acrylates
  • Pharmaceutical Preparations
  • Waste Water
  • titanium dioxide
  • Silver
  • Polymethyl Methacrylate
  • Titanium
  • Tetracycline
  • acrylic acid