Efficiency of a solar photocatalysis process using TiO2 powder dispersion and TiO2 immobilized on blue glass slabs for the removal of ibuprofen from aqueous environments

The Non-Steroidal Anti-Inflammatory Drug (NSAID) named ibuprofen (IBP) is a widely utilized analgesic anti-inflammatory drug, and it has been found as a pollutant in aqueous environments. It is sensitive to oxidation and photodegradation. In this work, the photolysis and photocatalytic degradations of IBP under solar irradiation were studied. In the heterogeneous photocatalysts experiments two methods were used (i) the catalyst titanium dioxide (TiO2) was dispersed as powder in pollutant solution; (ii) blue glass slabs with TiO2 immobilized on the surface were submerged into the reactor containing the pollutant solution. The efficiency of photolysis and photocatalytic processes towards the removal of IBP was investigated, and the performance of different reaction methods was evaluated. Results varied from no removal as in photolysis case to the complete mineralization for the IBP in photocatalytic degradations processes. Approximately complete degradation of IBP occurred after 2.5 hours by using TiO2 particles and 24 hours were needed to get the same result with the synthesized TiO2 blue glasses (Fig.1), which indicate that the TiO2powder was more effective than the semiconductor immobilized in the blue glasses. Kinetic studies for each experiment were accomplished (Table 1), and then the identification of the photoproducts was performed using liquid chromatography coupled with mass spectrometry (LC-MS).Many photoproducts were detected and identified. The overall results suggest that the use of TiO2heterogeneous photo-catalysis either in powder or blue glass form may be promising in the protection of environmental system from these emerging contaminants.