Polyaniline/Bi12TiO20 Hybrid System for Cefixime Removal by Combining Adsorption and Photocatalytic Degradation

Abstract

Sillenite catalysts have shown efficient photocatalytic activity for the removal of various pollutants from water in previous studies, thus enhancing their activity by combining them with other materials will be very promising for environmental applications. In this context, an interesting hybrid system containing Polyaniline (PANI) as an adsorbent and Bi12TiO20 (BTO) sillenite as a catalyst was proposed in this work. Cefixime (CFX) has been selected as a pollutant for this study, and its removal was evaluated using PANI (adsorption), PANI and BTO (combined system) and the hybrid system Bi12TiO20/Polyaniline (BTO/PANI). First, the impact of PANI adsorption was investigated on its own; after that, the solution was filtered to separate the adsorbent from the liquid in order to re-treat the solution using photocatalysis (combining adsorption with photocatalysis). At the same time, a similar technique was used involving the hybrid system BTO/PANI. The results show that the hybrid system can remove a very high Cefixime concentration of 30 mg/L, almost 100%, within only 2 h, and this is better than previous investigations. These results indicate that it is possible to combine photocatalysis and adsorption processes to control water pollution.