Recent Advances in Photocatalytic Degradation of Pharmaceuticals and Pesticides

Dear Colleagues,

The occurrence of pollutants of emerging concern, also called emerging pollutants (EPs), in wastewater (WW) and their detrimental impact on aquatic and terrestrial ecosystems and human health is currently a matter of concern among the scientific community, as the potential ecotoxicological effects on non-target receptors due to their exposure remain unknown. Many of them are known to be persistent in water, which puts pressure on wastewater treatment plants (WWTPs) for their operational removal. Among them, pesticides (herbicides, insecticides, etc.), pharmaceuticals (antibiotics, legal drugs, analgesics, steroids, beta-blockers, etc.) and others have been detected in WW worldwide in recent years.

Pesticides (PTs), also called plant-protection products, are substances intended to prevent, destroy, repel, or mitigate any pest on crops either before or after harvest to avoid their deterioration during storage or transport. Although pesticides are beneficial for crop production, their extensive use can have serious costs for human health due to their biomagnification and persistent nature. In fact, many of them have been recognised as endocrine disruptors and can reach WWTPs as a result of livestock farming and agri-food activities, which generate pesticide-containing WW. On the other hand, pharmaceuticals (PMs), compounds used in the treatment or prevention of human and animal diseases to restore, correct or modify organic function, are frequently identified at high concentrations in the aquatic environment, probably due to their incessant release from WWTPs, which is significantly faster than their removal rates.

The need to increase the supply of water is linked to both the scarcity of the quantity available and the deterioration of its quality. This concern is of particular interest, especially in areas where a low rainfall pattern provides insufficient water resources to meet the demands caused by agriculture, which requires increased reuse of WWTPs. As a result of the current water scarcity, more emphasis should be placed on the 3Rs (Recover, Recycle and Reuse) approach to WW treatment, both industrial and agricultural. For this reason, it is now essential to develop remediation techniques that favour the total elimination of all traces of pollutants in water, both of natural and anthropogenic origin, in order to promote its subsequent reuse. In this context, advanced oxidation processes (AOPs) are the most explored in the last years to remove EPs from WW; although, they have not yet been implemented on a full-scale. AOPs have gained great interest, and their applications have been recently expanded, especially solar heterogeneous photocatalysis.

The aim of this Special Issue is the collection of recent advances in the field of photocatalytic degradation of pesticides and pharmaceuticals in wastewater. Original research papers, reviews and perspectives are welcome in the following areas, among others:

• Development of novel heterogeneous photocatalysts.
• Development of novel homogeneous photocatalytic processes.
• Photocatalytic degradation of pesticides and pharmaceuticals from wastewater.
• Advances in solar-driven photocatalytic approach to pollutant abatement.
• Reaction kinetics of photocatalytic degradation.
• Investigation of photocatalytic intermediates using new analytical techniques.
• Assessment of toxicity of reaction intermediates during photocatalysis.
• The effects of environmental factors on the performance of photocatalysis.
• Impact of water matrix on photocatalytic efficiency.
• Full-scale implementation of photocatalytic processes in wastewater treatment plants
• Techno-economic assessment of the implementation of photocatalytic treatment as tertiary treatment in WWTPs.
• Reuse of reclaimed wastewater for agricultural irrigation.

If you would like to submit papers for publication in this Special Issue or have any questions, please contact the in-house Editor, Mr. Ives Liu ([email protected]).

Prof. Dr. Simón Navarro
Prof. Dr. Gabriel Pérez-Luca
Guest Editors

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• wastewater treatment
• water reuse
• photocatalysis
• novel catalysts
• pesticides
• pharmaceuticals
• reaction intermediates
• photodegradation kinetic
• UV
• LED
• VIS
• natural sunlight