Removal of emerging pollutants in aqueous medium through photocatalytic processes using pilarated clays

The presence of emerging pollutants such as drugs, personal care compounds, industrial additives, hormones, caffeine, nicotine, among others, causes concern due to the relationship with bacterial resistance, since studies have demonstrated the need to remove them to mitigate their effect on the environment in addition to causing human health, these pollutants are found in surface water sources, groundwater and marine environments. These pollutants are released in very low concentrations, however, they represent a concern due to their continuous discharge in the environment causing the accumulation of these, as in the case of certain medications that are not totally absorbed by our body, they excrete and pass to wastewater (Peña-Alvarez and Castillo-Alanís 2015). Urban wastewater is processed in treatment plants, however, the low concentrations and complexity of such emerging pollutants prevent their correct elimination, giving special interest in the use of advanced oxidation technologies such as photocatalysis, being the only treatments that manage to mineralize pollutants in CO2 and water. An option to prepare photocatizers are clay supports, which through pillarization processes can be transformed into photocatalyst support. The objective of this research project is to synthesize photocatizers supported in pillarized natural clays with titanium dioxide and dapades of metals such as iron to be used in advanced oxidation processes with direct and indirect solar radiation to remove emerging pollutants in aqueous media.

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