Green photocatalytic disinfection of real sewage: efficiency evaluation and toxicity assessment of eco-friendly TiO2-based magnetic photocatalyst under solar light

Abstract

To evaluate the green photocatalytic disinfection for practical applications, disinfection of different types of real sewage using magnetic photocatalyst RGO/Fe,N-TiO2/Fe3O4@SiO2 (RGOFeNTFS) under simulated solar light was investigated: low-salinity sewage after tertiary treatment, low-salinity sewage after secondary biological treatment, high-salinity sewage after secondary biological treatment, and high-salinity sewage after chemically enhanced primary treatment. The classification of the sewage as high and low-salinity is based on the regions of sewage source that use seawater and freshwater for toilet flushing, respectively. It shows potential of solar-light-driven photocatalytic disinfection in low-salinity sewage: around 20 min (for sewage after tertiary treatment) and 45 min (for sewage after secondary treatment) of photocatalytic disinfection are required for sewage to meet the discharge standard, and no bacterial regrowth is observed in the treated sewage after 48 h. However, due to the poorer water quality, the high-salinity sewage requires a relatively long reaction time (more than 240 min) to meet the discharge standard, showing minimal practical significance. Further, the complex characteristics of real sewage, such as organic matter, suspended matter, multivalent-ions, pH and DO level significantly influence photocatalytic disinfection, and should be carefully reviewed in evaluating the photocatalytic disinfection of sewage. Besides, RGOFeNTFS shows a good reusability over three cycles for photocatalytic disinfection of low-salinity sewage samples. Moreover, the non-toxicity, indicated by phytoplankton in seawater, of both RGOFeNTFS (<= 3 g/L) and treated low-salinity sewage demonstrates the feasibility of the practical application of photocatalytic disinfection using RGOFeNTFS under irradiation of solar light.