Abstract
The present paper reports a novel approach for fabrication of eco-friendly ZnO nanoparticles onto three-dimensional (3D)-printed polylactic acid (PLA) scaffolds/structures. Several alcohol-based traditional Greek liquors were used to achieve the corrosion of metallic zinc collected from a typical galvanic anode to obtain photocatalytic active nanostructured ZnO, varying from water, to Greek “ouzo” and “raki”, and pure ethanol, in combination with “Baker’s ammonia” (ammonium bicarbonate), sold worldwide in every food store. The photocatalytic active ZnO nanostructures onto three-dimensional (3D)-printed PLA scaffolds were used to achieve the degradation of 50 ppm paracetamol in water, under UV irradiation. This study provides evidence that following the proposed low-cost, eco-friendly routes for the fabrication of large-scale photocatalysts, an almost 95% degradation of 50 ppm paracetamol in water can be achieved, making the obtained 3D ZnO/PLA structures excellent candidates for real life environmental applications. This is the first literature research report on a successful attempt of using this approach for the engineering of low-cost photocatalytic active elements for pharmaceutical contaminants in waters.
Highlights
Photocatalysis is a well-known technique with many applications in the degradation of organic pollutants [1]
It can be observed that the Zinc oxide (ZnO) synthesized only in water led to the largest particle size
The successful synthesis of environmentally friendly ZnO structured coatings utilizing materials that we encounter in everyday life as precursors, such as zinc filings, baking NH3, H2O, raki, and ouzo, is reported in this first literature research report on a successful attempt of using this approach for the engineering of low-cost photocatalytic active elements for pharmaceutical contaminants in waters
Summary
Photocatalysis is a well-known technique with many applications in the degradation of organic pollutants [1]. For the last several years, quite a lot of research groups have tried to find/follow “green” approaches (synthesis using naturally available reducing agents) for the synthesis of nanostructured materials [20,21], and to use environmentally friendly and non-toxic precursors in order to reduce consumption of high purity reagents with high environmental footprints and costs, compared to conventional chemical methods [5,21,22,23,24,25]. This study tries to combine the environmentally friendly chemical synthesis of ZnO nanostructures based on recycled Zn anodes with environment-friendly biocompatible polylactic acid (PLA) 3D-printed scaffolds, in order to fabricate photocatalytic devices with enhanced performance in the removal of pharmaceutical pollutants from water. Against 50 ppm paracetamol in water, making them excellent candidates for real life applications This is the first literature research report on a successful attempt of using this approach for the engineering of low-cost photocatalytic active elements for pharmaceutical contaminants in waters
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