Preparation of TiO2/activated carbon nanomaterials with enhanced photocatalytic activity in paracetamol degradation

Despite the advances in the photocatalytic degradation method to treat wastewater, obtaining efficient, stable, and cost-effective materials for this application is still challenging. The present study employed a simple and effective sol-gel method to prepare a photocatalyst consisting of titanium dioxide (TiO2) and activated carbon (AC). Four types of catalysts were obtained with different proportions of TiO2:AC, which were named TiO2/AC-05, TiO2/AC-10, TiO2/AC-30, and TiO2/AC-70. The surface area and the pore volume of TiO2 were significantly increased after incorporating AC, from 5% to 70%. X-ray diffraction and Raman spectroscopy showed that TiO2 is present in the anatase phase, with a particle size distribution centered at 11 nm, obtained by transmission electron microscopy (TEM). Moreover, TEM and X-ray photoelectron spectroscopy (XPS) analysis confirmed the interaction of both materials, resulting in a TiO2/AC nanocomposite combination. All four combination types were evaluated as the photocatalyst for Paracetamol degradation to investigate which material has the best photocatalytic performance. TiO2/AC-30 showed the highest efficient activity and achieved about 95% of the Paracetamol photodegradation. Therefore, the TiO2/AC-30 nanocomposite can be reused because it showed activity after five cycles of Paracetamol photodegradation. This study indicates that TiO2/AC-30 can be a good candidate for water purification containing emergent contaminants.