Remediation by heliophotocatalysis of water contaminated by sulfamethoxazole

The présence of sulfamethoxazole in surface waters constitutes an environmental problem.The objective of this work was to determine the effectiveness of photocatalysis by sunlight in the elimination of sulfamethoxazole.Powdered titanium dioxide was fixed on clay balls by calcining in an oven at 400°C.Water solutions spiked with sulfamethoxazole were prepared.Photolysis and photocatalysis tests were carried out by exposing the reactors to solar irradiation.The results showed that the degradation rate was 94.95% after 300 minutes of solar irradiation in the presence of 60 g of clay balls containing TiO2.While the yield of direct solar photolysis was about 5%.This study was an alternative to the depollution of water contaminated by sulfamethoxazole and proves that such water can indeed be rehabilitated by solar photocatalysis.This process constitutes, from an economic point of view, a significant advantage compared to conventional processes for the treatment of water contaminated by persistent organic polluants.