Decomposition of acetaminophen (Ace) using TiO2/UVA/LED system

For photocatalytic degradation of organic pharmaceutical pollutants in wastewater, an important limitation is low photonic efficiency. To solve this problem, using periodic illumination is a good option. However, due to the nature of widely applied traditional mercury lamp, which cannot be turned on and off efficiently, the study of periodic illumination was limited. In this research, ultraviolet-A/light emitting diode (UVA/LED) lamp was introduced and a TiO2/UVA/LED photocatalytic system was setup for acetaminophen (Ace) degradation study. The background study was conducted, which included the effects of H2O2, humic acid and bicarbonate ion concentrations. Different periodic pulse frequencies were applied, results in this study shows that smallest duty cycle (0.2) and shortest cycle time (20 ms) gave the highest photonic efficiency for photocatalytic degradation of Ace in the studied range. The effect of additional H2O2 was also studied. H2O2 added into the heterogeneous reaction system enhanced both decomposition rate and photonic efficiency under both continuous illumination mode and periodic illumination mode. The enhancement effect of H2O2, however, was found more obvious for controlled periodic illumination, especially for small duty cycles and short cycle times. In addition, by the addition of H2O2, the mineralization of Ace was accelerated probably due to the increase of hydroxyl radical concentration. (C) 2016 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.