An effective photocatalytic system to eliminate carbamazepine from wastewater

Abstract

Pharmaceuticals compounds, like carbamazepine,are emerging pollutants that have been detected in wastewater and surfacewaters throughout the world. Their presence was demonstrated in South Americanrivers, particularly in the Suquía River basin, Córdoba, Argentina. There areseveral recent studies of applications of ferrites as photocatalyst used in thedegradation of pollutants were reported. In this work cobalt, nickel and zincferrites synthetized by Pechini method were characterized and tested. By X-ray diffractionpatterns were determine that all samples had spinel structure. A solution of 10mg/L of carbamazepine was 98% mineralized on a photocatalytic system usingUv-germicide lamp, hydrogen peroxide as oxidant and synthetized ferrites ascatalyst in 4 hours of photoreaction. The cobalt ferrite had the highestmineralization at the firstly reaction samples.