Advanced Oxidation of Herbicides Contaminants: Testing a new approach for the Degradation by Photocatalytic Methods via TiO2 Thin Films (With Simultaneous Production of Hydrogen)

Abstract

"The ability to produce energy from contaminated water treatment is new effort on the Energy-Water Nexus. Especially, contamination from agriculture uses of herbicides and pesticides contaminated our clean water supply. A four- step technology is being developed to recycle contaminated water and produce hydrogen as potential use in fuel cells. The technology is based on the use of TiO2 thin films to replace the current costly use of nanoparticles in batch-designed systems that requires elimination of the particles by filtration. The four steps involved in the technology include a- Manufacturing and characterization of the thin films, b-Testing the production of Hydrogen and comparison with other techniques, C-Testing the degradation of agricultural-based contaminants herbicides via thin films and d-Combination of step b and c to simultaneously produce hydrogen and decontaminate water. The production of H2 via the thin films has been achieve based on pure water. This work is focuses on the use of advanced oxidation techniques, specifically the use of photo-catalytic degradation processes via TiO2 nanoparticles to degrade herbicides. The reactor equipped with UV-lamp and the TiO2 nanoparticles has been applied to the degradation of contaminant via UV-photocatalytic methods on different concentration of catalyst and herbicide. Favorable conditions for contaminant degradation (~60%) were identified at high concentration of contaminants vs high concentration of titanium dioxide at 90 minutes of treatment.
The next work will be focused on the reduction kinetics of the pollutants by using UV-Photocatalytic processes suitable for the potential simultaneous production of H2(g) from herbicides contaminated water."