RT Conference Proceedings T1 Synergy effect in the photocatalytic degradation of pharmaceuticals on a suspended mixture of titania and activated carbon A1 Rioja, Nerea A1 Benguria, Pablo A1 Scifo, Lorette A1 Zorita, Saioa AB Photocatalysis is currently being considered for many environmental applications such as water decontamination. This is due to its ability to degrade organic pollutants to CO2, water and mineral acids. In TiO2 photocatalysis, UV radiation is needed to create hole-electron pairs which can be transferred to water to form oxidizing species. However this process generally suffers low apparent quantum yield, mainly due to the rapid recombination of the photogenerated electron-holes. In order to improve quantum yields, the addition of activated carbon (AC) has been suggested. As adsorption is a key point in photocatalysis, the addition of AC can aid to increase pollutant's degradation kinetics by augmenting their adsorption onto the TiO2-AC interphase. Carbon has also been suggested to act as an electron sink which may retard the recombination of electron-hole pairs. The aim of our work is to study the synergistic effect of TiO2-AC on the removal of five different pharmaceuticals from water. Two different ACs were tested to identify the best working conditions. Different routes to combine TiO2-AC were as well studied. Experiments under the following conditions: UV+TiO2, UV+AC and UV+TiO2+AC were performed in order to determine % of removal by photocatalysis, adsorption and by the synergistic effect of TiO2-AC. Drugs degradation in a real matrix such as river water, and not only in ultrapure water, was also investigated. PB TANGER Ltd. SN 9788087294192 YR 2010 FD 2010 LK https://hdl.handle.net/11556/2756 UL https://hdl.handle.net/11556/2756 LA eng NO Rioja , N , Benguria , P , Scifo , L & Zorita , S 2010 , Synergy effect in the photocatalytic degradation of pharmaceuticals on a suspended mixture of titania and activated carbon . in NANOCON 2010 - 2nd International Conference, Conference Proceedings . NANOCON 2010 - 2nd International Conference, Conference Proceedings , TANGER Ltd. , pp. 580-585 , 2nd International Conference NANOCON 2010 , Olomouc , Czech Republic , 12/10/10 . NO conference NO Publisher Copyright: © 2013 TANGER Ltd. DS TECNALIA Publications RD 30 jul 2024