Removal of diclofenac by photocatalysis utilizing crosslinked chitosan/oil-palm embedded titanium dioxide

Photocatalytic degradation of diclofenac from aqueous solution utilizing cross-linked chitosan/oil palm ash embedded titanium dioxide composite beads (TiO 2 -COPA) was studied. Fourier Transform Infrared Spectroscopy (FTIR) was established to identify the functional groups of the composite beads. In order to conduct a kinetic and isotherm analysis, a number of parameters were taken into account, initial diclofenac concentration (10–50 mg L −1 ) and the dosage of composite beads (0.2–0.4 g). When compared to other concentrations, the initial concentration of diclofenac at 10 mg L −1 had the highest degradation percentage (51.32 %). With 69.32 % degradation, 0.4 g of titanium TiO 2 -COPA composite beads showed the greatest percentage. Photocatalytic degradation kinetics data were evaluated using pseudo-first order and pseudo-second order models. The rate constants for these models for under different initial concentrations were assessed. Kinetic studies proved that the photocatalysis conformed with the pseudo-first-order model. Langmuir Hinshelwood was utilized to analyze the equilibrium data at different diclofenac concentrations.