Photocatalytic Oxidation for the Removal of Chlorpyrifos from Aqueous Solution

Due to increased pesticide usage worldwide, an effective pollutant removal process for pesticides in agricultural run-off water is needed. An advanced oxidation process (AOP) that utilizes TiO2 with exposure to ultraviolet light is a possibility. An immobilized TiO2 catalyst was used in conjunction with a bench-scale batch reactor and a pilot-scale compound parabolic collector (CPC) reactor to analyze the degradation of chlorpyrifos using UV-Visible spectroscopy, HPLC, TOC, and LCMS. The fixed-film batch and CPC reactors yielded average treatment efficiencies of 80% and 89.17%, respectively, after 4 hours, suggesting successful degradation of chlorpyrifos using photocatalytic oxidation. The degradation of chlorpyrifos was found to follow first order kinetics