Photodegradation of paracetamol using activated carbon-TiO2 under low uv light / Nurul Nadiah Abdullah

The presence of drug residues in environmental matrices, particularly water, poses significant challenges to community health and safety. Photocatalysis has emerged as a promising water treatment method due to its high efficiency, accuracy, and precision. Titanium dioxide (TiO2) serves as a semiconductor photocatalyst owing to its stability, affordability, and low toxicity. However, challenges such as rapid electron recombination. In this study, activated carbon (AC) is integrated with TiO2 to enhance photocatalytic performance against paracetamol under low UV-light irradiation. Various ratios of AC-TiO2 photocatalysts are evaluated, and the resulting photocatalysts are characterized using SEM-EDX and FTIR analyses. The investigation focuses on activated carbon, and its effects on developing high- performance photocatalysts, encompassing surface morphological, structural, and optical properties, as well as photoinduced electron-hole separation efficiency. The results of photocatalyst performance reveals that the AC-TiO2 (B) composite exhibits the most effective photocatalytic performance against paracetamol under low UV light intensity, achieving an efficiency of 89.9%. Conversely, AC-TiO2 (A) and AC-TiO2 (C) demonstrate lower efficiencies of 86.32% and 78.24%, respectively.