The presence of antibiotics in aquatic environments has become a growing concern due to their incomplete removal in conventional wastewater treatment plants, leading to the dissemination of antimicrobial resistance. Solar-driven advanced oxidation processes have emerged as sustainable strategies for degrading persistent pharmaceuticals. In this context, immobilizing photocatalysts onto polymeric supports may facilitate their recovery and reuse, thereby enhancing the practicality of water treatment applications. Carbon Quantum Dots (CQDs) were synthesized hydrothermally and incorporated onto commercial TiO2 (P25) to form TiO2/CQDs nanocomposites. These photocatalysts were embedded into electrospun polycaprolactone (PCL) nanofibers at a 1:2 photocatalyst-to-polymer ratio, and the resulting fibers were characterized by scanning electron microscopy. Photolysis and photocatalysis experiments were carried out under simulated solar irradiation using amoxicillin (AMX, 10 mg L-1) in phosphate buffer (0.001 mol L-1, pH 8), with a photocatalyst concentration of 1.5 g L-1. AMX degradation was monitored by HPLC-UV. The kinetic parameters were determined by assuming pseudo-first-order behavior. AMX removal under irradiation was significantly enhanced in the presence of the photocatalyst, resulting in an approximately 18-fold increase in degradation efficiency compared with photolysis. The pseudo-first-order rate constant increased from 0.0112 h-1 to 0.201 h-1 with TiO2/CQDs@PLC, reducing the AMX half-life from 62 to 3.45 h. These results highlight the potential of this sustainable method for treating water contaminated with antibiotics.
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Solar-driven photocatalytic degradation of amoxicillin using TiO2/Carbon Quantum Dots nanocomposites immobilized in electrospun polycaprolactone fibers
Published:
03 April 2026
by MDPI
in The 1st International Online Conference on Photochemistry
session Photocatalysis
Abstract:
Keywords: Amoxicillin, photocatalysis, titanium dioxide, carbon quantum dots, polycaprolactone
