Detoxification of Endocrine Disruptors in Water Using Visible-Light-Active Nanostructures: A Review

Abstract

The scarcity of pure water has become a global and major concern because of rapid industrialization in modern and exponentially populated civilization. No life can exist without water, and contamination-free water for the whole ecosystem is a primary demand. Therefore, the enhanced rate of water contamination and the infliction of living beings are considered to be challenging issues. It attracts great attention in the scientific community when water pollution by multifarious endocrine disruptors (EDs) such as plasticizers, herbicides, insecticides, pharmaceutical and personal care products, and food additives and sweeteners, which are discharged from industries, reach water resources, and finally appear in drinking water, is involved. The chemical contaminants of EDs disturb the functions of glands from where hormones or juices are secreted and mix with blood directly. Their persistence results in adverse toxic effects in all living beings, for example, declining reproduction, endometriosis, cancer, and many more diseases. These are not easily mineralized or removed from water compared to various organic dye molecules because of their typical characteristic light absorption in the UV region. Therefore, it is very urgent to mineralize wastewater from such types of contaminants. Among the existing technologies, visible-light-triggered photocatalytic degradation is accredited as cost-effective, renewable, and environmentally friendly. Besides, the utilization of cheap visible light as a driving force with strong mineralization efficiency under facile reaction conditions and no harmful end products enables it to have a more beneficial effect. This review describes different classes of EDs, their adverse toxic effects, and efficient degradation through remarkable active nanomaterials/nanocomposites reported from 2015 to 2020. The detailed mechanisms of pollutant adsorption on the nanostructure surface and their decomposition actions have been interpreted. Also, different pollutant degradation pathways have been attentively considered and well-explained. Besides, the future outlook has been elucidated at the end.

Design of a TiO2 Coated Film in a Batch Reactor: Nanoparticle Film Synthesis and Optimization for Contaminant Degradation and Modeling

“…The catalytic reactor setup was kept inside a black chamber. The diameter and height of the cylindrical batch reactor are 10.2 and 18.5 cm, respectively, and the volume of inserted TiO 2 -coated quartz tube is 130 cm 3 . The volume of the reactor (V R ) is 1510 mL, in that 1100 mL of 8.3 μM RhB dye solution (∼4 mg/L) was taken for the degradation reaction.…”

“…Photocatalytic process is an advanced oxidation process for water-polluting contaminants, including pharmaceutical molecules, pesticides, recalcitrant organic waste, food additives, personal care products, textile dyes, and other different types of organic pollutants. − At present, conventional methods, including biological and chemical treatments, are very time-consuming and lead to the nonrecovery of homogeneous catalysts used in advanced oxidation processes, respectively. In contrast to such conventional treatments, photocatalysis involves a single-step heterogeneous catalytic system, which can have potential in water purification and degradation of recalcitrant molecules. , Although, a major development for designing the photocatalytic reactor is still required, different types of reactor designs have been reported in the literature, such as shell and tube, corrugated plate, Carberry, slurry bubble column, and falling film slurry reactor designs, − including single and a series of multiple reactor units. , …”

“…p is the volume of catalyst particle (m 3 ), ρ p is the density of TiO 2 (4.23 g/cm3 ), and (m cat /v p ρ p ) is the number of catalyst nanoparticles.Mole Balance on the Catalyst Film. An unsteady-state mole balance equation of RhB dye on the catalyst nanoparticle film is given by the following equation:…”

Recent Advances in Endocrine Disrupting Compounds Degradation through Metal Oxide-Based Nanomaterials

“…Photocatalysis is a low-cost and versatile green technology widely used for the degradation of organic pollutants such as EDCs [33][34][35][36]. Photocatalytic processes need a semiconductor acting as photocatalyst that absorbs light radiation in a specific wavelength range, thus resulting in the excitation of electron (e − ) from the valence band (VB) to the conduction band (CB).…”

A comprehensive review on multi-colored emissive carbon dots as fluorescent probes for the detection of pharmaceutical drugs in water

“…4 Around 12 000 new chemicals are launched on a daily basis despite the availability of 60 million organic and inorganic products. 5 The global consumption of drugs reached 4.5 trillion in 2020. 6 Most of these chemicals and drugs end up in the aquatic systems, such as seas, lakes, rivers, ponds, and drinking water, aer consumption.…”