PHOTOCATALYTIC REDUCTION OF HEXAVALENT CHROME AQUEOUS SOLUTIONS USING POLYMERIC MICROFIBERS LOADED WITH ZnO NANOPARTICLES

MORALES, GRACIELA; CASTRO RUÍZ, ANDRÉS; RODRIGUEZ, HERIBERTO; ABRAHAM, GUSTAVO A.; RIVERO GUADALUPE; LOZANO-MORALES, ALEJANDRO

Cancun

Congreso; XXIX International Materials Research Congress; 2021

Hexavalent chromium (Cr VI) is among the main inorganic contaminants in water and representsserious threats to human health, causing harmful physiological effects; at concentrations above 0.1mg L-1 of Cr VI in drinking water, it is also considered as a potentially carcinogenic agent. In thissense, outstanding research has been carried out regarding the use of new methodologies for watertreatment; among them, the technology of membranes made submicron polymeric fibers could offer a significant advance in techniques and processes for water treatment, since their preparationinvolves processes with lower energy consumption and low cost compared to conventional processes.Likewise, heterogeneous photocatalysis is considered an effective and low-cost technique; however,the recovery of the photocatalysts the treated solution remains a challenge and limits theapplications of this technology. To overcome this drawback, the fixation of the photocatalysts onappropriate supports has been proposed as an alternative, avoiding the material recovery step.Considering the above, in this research work, the coaxial electrospinning technique was used for thedevelopment of composite polymer membranes based on poly (acrylonitrile-butadienestyrene)/polyacrylonitrile (ABS/PAN) fibers loaded with zinc oxide (ZnO) nanoparticles and its efficiency in the photoreduction of Cr VI ions in aqueous solutions was evaluated.