Performance of Biogenic Silica Photocatalytic Ceramic Foams and Cu-TiO2 NPs in the Degradation of Emerging Pollutants under Natural Solar Radiation

Emerging contaminants in the drinking water supply are a growing concern due to their presence in various sources and incomplete degradation occurring in conventional treatment plants. This underscores the need to implement alternative and specialized processes for their removal. Photocatalysis, an advanced oxidation process that uses radiation as the sole energy source, is emerging as a promising solution. In this study, the performance of novel photocatalytic materials was evaluated: ceramic foams synthesized from biomass, specifically biogenic silica obtained from rice husk, and copper-decorated titanium dioxide nanoparticles (Cu-TiO2 NPs). These foams were synthesized using the direct foaming method with CO2, an efficient and sustainable approach. Their performance was evaluated in the degradation of acetaminophen (ACP), an emerging contaminant of pharmaceutical origin, achieving a removal of 91.0% with a loading of 1.5 g/L, a time of 83 minutes and using natural solar radiation. The results obtained demonstrate that these ceramic foams have the potential to overcome current limitations and represent a significant advance towards the implementation of photocatalysis on an industrial and global scale.