Reusable magnetic mixture of CuFeO-FeO and TiO for photocatalytic degradation of pesticides in water

Photocatalysis is a promising treatment method to remove pollutants from water. TiO-P25 is a commercially available model photocatalyst, which very efficiently degrades organic pollutants under UVA light exposure. However, the collection and the recovery of TiO-P25 from cleaned water poses significant difficulties, severely limiting its usability. To address this challenge, we have prepared a sintered mixture of TiO-P25 nanomaterials and magnetic CuFeO-FeO nanocomposites. The mixture material was shown to contain spinel ferrite, hematite and maghemite structures, copper predominantly in Cu and iron predominantly in Fe state. The CuFeO-FeO and TiO-P25 mixture demonstrated magnetic collectability from processed water and photocatalytic activity, which was evidenced through the successful photodegradation of the herbicide 2,4-D. Our findings suggest that the sintered mixture of CuFeO-FeO and TiO-P25 holds a promise for improving photocatalytic water treatment, with the potential to overcome current photocatalyst recovery issues.