Abstract:
Drinking water is used for many purposes starting from drinking to large food and beverage
manufacturing processes. Therefore, it’s safety and quality is a critical factor considering
increasing of pollution of drinking water sources from various sources. Micro-pollutants are
present in these sources leads to health issues among humans. Bisphenol-A (BPA) and antibiotic
Ciprofloxacin are major micro-pollutant present in drinking water sources. In the present study,
the effectiveness of newly developed graphene-based photocatalyst was tested against
degradation of BPA and antibiotic (ciprofloxacin) in drinking water. Halogen lamp (lux=870)
was used as the main light source. The powder form of the photocatalytic material was added to
drinking water samples and exposed to sunlight. An aliquot was collected from each treatment
at every ten minutes to determine the absorbance. Degradation behaviour was further studied
by changing pH (5.4, 6.5, 7.3 and 8.2), initial concentration of BPA (from 5 mg/L to 20 mg/L),
photocatalyst concentration (from 0.4 g/L to 2.0 g/L) and light source including sun light (from
11.00 a.m to 2.00 p.m), Halogen lamp (lux= 870), and UV lamp (254 nm). The results
demonstrated that the highest degradation efficiency for BPA was achieved with 2.0 g/L catalyst
concentration (95.5±0.20), 10 mg/L initial BPA concentration (95.70±0.73), pH 8.2 (92.60±2.85)
and under visible light sources (95.7±0.73). Ciprofloxacin degradation was effective at 1.0 g/L
catalyst concentration (98.13±0.12), with halogen light (97.56±0.12), and sunlight (96.38±0.19).
Photocatalytic material was effective in basic pH value compared to neutral and acidic pH values
of the drinking water. Compared to UV light, the tested material degrades BPA and Ciprofloxacin
above 92% in drinking water samples under visible light. Therefore, graphene-based
photocatalyst developed in this study is a nano compound that can be applied to degrade
harmful BPA and ciprofloxacin in drinking water sources.
