Photocatalytic degradation of benzophenone 3 in aqueous media under UV light irradiation

Abstract

Benzophenone-3 (BP-3), an organic UV filter widely used in sunscreen and other personal care products, has been detected at several ppm level in surface and ground water, which could significantly affect the human health and aquatic environment. In this study, the photocatalytic degradation of BP-3 along with optimal operating conditions such as initial pH, initial concentration, catalysts loading, degradation kinetics and efficiency, degree of mineralization was investigated. Two different catalysts composite, PbO/TiO₂ and Sb₂O₃/TiO₂, were synthesized by hydrothermal methods. Synthesized catalysts were further characterized by XRD, SEM, EDS, BET and UV-Vis DRS techniques to investigate the crystalline properties, surface morphologies, elemental analysis, textural properties and the optical properties respectively. Photocatalytic experiments under UV-C irradiation demonstrated the complete removal of BP-3 using PbO/TiO₂ catalyst within 120 min. Pollutant degradation rate and removal efficiency was higher at pH 7 when the initial contaminant concentration was 20μM and the catalysts dose was 0.75 g/L.