PHOTOCATALYTIC DEGRADATION OF SOME TYPICAL ANTIBIOTICS

Abstract

Antibiotics are chemical compounds used to destroy and prevent the growth of bacteria. They are used in various fields such as medicine, agriculture and veterinary medicine. Antibiotics are increasingly entering wastewater, which poses a threat of the development of antibacterial resistance, so they must be removed from wastewater. Currently, the most popular methods for removing antibiotics from water include physical adsorption, flocculation, and chemical oxidation, but these processes leave significant amounts of chemical reagents and polymer electrolytes in the water. Instead, the photocatalytic method of their elimination using semiconductors is an effective means of removing various organic wastes, including antibiotics. Various semiconductor materials have been tested to remove them, however, research is still ongoing due to various challenges. This paper summarizes research on the removal of antibiotics by photocatalysis and details the recent advances using various nanostructure-based photocatalysts.