Photodegradation of Ibuprofen, Cetirizine, and Naproxen by PAN-MWCNT/TiO2-NH2 nanofiber membrane under UV light irradiation

Background: In this study, the photodegradation of three pharmaceuticals, namely Ibuprofen (IBP), Naproxen (NPX), and Cetirizine (CIZ) in aqueous media was investigated under UV irradiation. The photocatalyst used in this work consists of surface functionalized titanium dioxide (TiO2-NH2) nanoparticles grafted into Polyacrylonitrile (PAN)/multi-walled carbon nanotube composite nanofibers. Surface modification of the fabricated composite nanofibers was illustrated using XRD, FTIR, and SEM analyses. Results: Sets of experiments were performed to study the effect of pharmaceuticals initial concentration (5-50 mg/L), solution pH (2-9), and irradiation time on the degradation efficiency. The results demonstrated that more than 99% degradation efficiency was obtained for IBP, CIZ, and NPX within 120, 40, and 25 min, respectively. Conclusions: Comparatively, the photocatalytic degradation of pharmaceuticals using PAN-CNT/TiO2-NH2 composite nanofibers was much more efficient than with PAN/TiO2-NH2 composite nanofibers.