{"title":"Innovative chitosan/TiO2 composite membrane for the sustainable photocatalytic purification of water contaminated with emerging micropollutants","authors":"Ingrid Luiza Reinehr, Débora Fernanda Capra, Aniela Pinto Kempka, Luiz Jardel Visioli, Alexandre Tadeu Paulino, Heveline Enzweiler","doi":"10.1007/s00289-025-05921-1","DOIUrl":null,"url":null,"abstract":"<div><p>The removal of emerging micropollutants from water is one of the main challenges of contemporary society, among these, caffeine that is widely consumed throughout the world. Caffeine is a persistent micropollutant of difficult degradation in aqueous solutions, which has motivated the search for efficient, sustainable treatment methods. The aim of the present study was to investigate the efficacy of photocatalytic processes using low-intensity UVC as the radiation source and chitosan/TiO<sub>2</sub> composite membranes for the degradation of caffeine in an aqueous medium simulating wastewater. The general procedure involved the synthesis and characterization of the composite membrane, caffeine photodegradation tests, serial photodegradation test, analyses of the chemical oxygen demand before and after the photodegradation studies, and the analysis of the phytotoxicity of the purified medium. One-step photodegradation efficiency was 52.91% with an initial caffeine concentration of 3.0 mg L<sup>−1</sup> after 240 min of exposure to low-intensity UVC radiation. Three-step serial photodegradation generated a caffeine degradation of 86.14%. The chemical oxygen demand analysis revealed a 63% reduction after three batches. The phytotoxicity tests demonstrated the environmental safety of the process, with a 220% germination index after one-step, and 235% after three-step photocatalysis. This study demonstrated the potential of the photocatalyst immobilized in a chitosan membrane as a sustainable process for removing emerging micropollutants using a single step or multiple steps of batch reaction, thus contributing to the development of safer, more economically feasible effluent treatments.</p><h3>Graphical abstract</h3><div><figure><div><div><picture><source><img></source></picture></div></div></figure></div></div>","PeriodicalId":737,"journal":{"name":"Polymer Bulletin","volume":"82 14","pages":"9513 - 9533"},"PeriodicalIF":4.0000,"publicationDate":"2025-07-05","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":"0","resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":null,"PeriodicalName":"Polymer Bulletin","FirstCategoryId":"92","ListUrlMain":"https://link.springer.com/article/10.1007/s00289-025-05921-1","RegionNum":3,"RegionCategory":"化学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":null,"EPubDate":"","PubModel":"","JCR":"Q2","JCRName":"POLYMER SCIENCE","Score":null,"Total":0}
引用次数: 0
Abstract
The removal of emerging micropollutants from water is one of the main challenges of contemporary society, among these, caffeine that is widely consumed throughout the world. Caffeine is a persistent micropollutant of difficult degradation in aqueous solutions, which has motivated the search for efficient, sustainable treatment methods. The aim of the present study was to investigate the efficacy of photocatalytic processes using low-intensity UVC as the radiation source and chitosan/TiO2 composite membranes for the degradation of caffeine in an aqueous medium simulating wastewater. The general procedure involved the synthesis and characterization of the composite membrane, caffeine photodegradation tests, serial photodegradation test, analyses of the chemical oxygen demand before and after the photodegradation studies, and the analysis of the phytotoxicity of the purified medium. One-step photodegradation efficiency was 52.91% with an initial caffeine concentration of 3.0 mg L−1 after 240 min of exposure to low-intensity UVC radiation. Three-step serial photodegradation generated a caffeine degradation of 86.14%. The chemical oxygen demand analysis revealed a 63% reduction after three batches. The phytotoxicity tests demonstrated the environmental safety of the process, with a 220% germination index after one-step, and 235% after three-step photocatalysis. This study demonstrated the potential of the photocatalyst immobilized in a chitosan membrane as a sustainable process for removing emerging micropollutants using a single step or multiple steps of batch reaction, thus contributing to the development of safer, more economically feasible effluent treatments.
期刊介绍：
"Polymer Bulletin" is a comprehensive academic journal on polymer science founded in 1988. It was founded under the initiative of the late Mr. Wang Baoren, a famous Chinese chemist and educator. This journal is co-sponsored by the Chinese Chemical Society, the Institute of Chemistry, and the Chinese Academy of Sciences and is supervised by the China Association for Science and Technology. It is a core journal and is publicly distributed at home and abroad.
"Polymer Bulletin" is a monthly magazine with multiple columns, including a project application guide, outlook, review, research papers, highlight reviews, polymer education and teaching, information sharing, interviews, polymer science popularization, etc. The journal is included in the CSCD Chinese Science Citation Database. It serves as the source journal for Chinese scientific and technological paper statistics and the source journal of Peking University's "Overview of Chinese Core Journals."
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