Understanding the photodegradation of amoxicillin antibiotic using visible light sensitized poly(methyl methacrylate)/TiO2 nanocomposite

The present study aimed to investigate the feasibility of using the novel type of PMMA/TiO2 nanocomposite film as a highly efficient visible light photocatalyst for photocatalytic degradation of amoxicillin (AMOX) as a model pollutant from aqueous solution and determining its removal efficiency. The prepared PMMA/TiO2 nanocomposite which was prepared by ionic liquid based microemulsion with (0.01 wt.%) of TiO2 content exhibited high photocatalytic activity due to increase in the generated hydroxyl radicals during the mineralization under visible light illumination. The effect of pH as an operating factor was evaluated and it was found that the pH of 7 is optimal pH to achieve the high photocatalytic efficiency. Also we tried to understand the reasons behind this performance of nanocomposites by means of generated hydroxyl radicals. Finally we introduced a survey of the behaviour of this novel PMMA/TiO2 nanocomposite with low loading amount of TiO2 nanoparticles.