Pharmaceutical and microbial removal from Wastewater by Photocatalysis

The increasing consumption of pharmaceutical to combat wide variety of diseases have caused pharmaceuticals as an emerging pollutant (EP) in water bodies and also in wastewater samples. The non-biodegradable nature of pharmaceuticals results their ineffective removal in biological systems including biological wastewater treatment units (BWTU). To combat the problem of secondary effluent from BWTU containing both EPs and un-settled/un-filtered bacteria, it is mandatory to identify a cost-effective hybrid treatment system. Photocatalysis, one of the promising advanced oxidation processes, could completely remove the EPs and microbes. In the present investigation, a novel catalyst having the potential of simultaneous photocatalytic activity, adsorption and microbial in-activation along with good re-usability will be prepared. Titanium di-oxide (TiO2), a well known catalyst can be doped with graphene oxide (GO) having high adsorption capacity and which is itself photocatalytically active and can decrease electron-hole recombination. Silver (Ag) or copper (Cu) nanoparticles having good anti-bacterial property can also be doped in the composite. Chitosan (CS) can be used for composites binding and for recovery purpose. Hence the prepared composite (CS-GO-Ag-TiO2) (a model) can be checked for simultaneous pharmaceutical and microbial removal. Moreover, the applicability of successfully developed catalyst for real-time secondary effluent treatment will be explored.

Faculty Supervisor:

Gopal Achari

Student:

Partner:

Indian Institute of Technology Madras

Discipline:

Engineering

Sector:

Environmental Science and Technology; Nanotechnology; Water

University:

University of Calgary

Program: