Potential effectiveness of visible-light-driven Fe/TiO2 photocatalysts for degradation of dyes contaminated wastewater and their antibacterial activity

Synthetic dyes are utilized across a variety of industries and pose potential threats to water quality which, adversely, affects human health and environment. Photocatalysis is an effective technique for degrading organic pollutants in wastewater by converting photons of light energy to chemical energy by using superior semiconducting materials. Herein, we emphasized the significance of wastewater treatment by using a visible-light-sensitive photocatalyst obtained by doping Fe into TiO2 for achieving high removal efficiency. According to the experimental results, photodegradation rate of the dye by 80% of 3% wt. Fe-doped TiO2 with 20% v/v H2O2 addition was achieved in acidic media with three successive recycling runs. Moreover, total organic carbon (TOC) values indicated that the dye was nearly mineralized into CO2 and water. This result may be related to the terephthalate (TPA) analysis, indicating that the amount of generated hydroxyl radicals increases via H2O2 addition. In addition, preliminary toxicological study was conducted focusing on contamination of Ti particles in selected plants after exposure to treated water. The antibacterial efficiency of the selected photocatalyst was further tested against Gram-positive and Gram-negative pathogenic bacterial strains. The results revealed that 3% wt. Fe-doped TiO2 was highly efficient in inactivating Escherichia coli and Staphylococcus aureus after 3 h under visible light illumination. Overall, our results provided an alternative for an inexpensive, non-toxic, stable, efficient, reusable, and excellent catalytic performance of 3% wt. Fe-doped TiO2 photocatalyst materials with significant tasks remained for future study, including dye contaminated wastewater treatment, bacterial growth inhibition and simultaneously solar harvesting.