Electro-photocatalytic degradation of amoxicillin using calcium titanate

The electro-photocatalytic degradation of amoxicillin in aqueous solution was investigated using single factor test by the potassium permanganate method for measuring the values of chemical oxygen demand (COD Mn). Batch experiments were carried out successfully under different conditions, including initial amoxicillin concentration, calcium titanate dosage, pH, UV irradiation time, electrolyte and temperature. The experimental results show that there is a great difference between electro-photocatalytic and photocatalitic degradation. The maximum electro-photocatalytic degradation efficiency can increase to 79% under the experimental conditions of 200 mL amoxicillin solution (100 mg L-1) with 0.5 g calcium titanate by pH=3 for 120 min irradiation and 0.058 g sodium chloride as electrolyte at 318.5K. In addition, the reaction rate constant of 0.00848 similar to 0.01349 min(-1), activation energy of 9.8934 kJ mol(-1) and the pre-exponential factor of 0.5728 were obtained based on kinetics studies, indicating that the electro-photocatalytic reaction approximately followed the first-order kinetics model.