Nanotechnology: A clean and sustainable technology for the degradation of pharmaceuticals present in water and wastewater

Pharmaceuticals, newly recognized classes of environmental pollutants, are becoming increasingly problematic contaminants of either surface water or ground water around industrial and residential communities. Pharmaceuticals are constantly released into aquatic environments, mainly due to their widespread consumption and complicated removal in wastewater treatment plants. Heterogeneous photocatalysis appear to be one of the most destructive advanced oxidation processes (AOPs) for organic contaminants and are possible to obtain complete mineralization of organic pollutants into eco-friendly end products under visible and solar light irradiation. In this study, flower-like In₂S₃ hierarchical nanostructures were successfully prepared via a facile solution-phase route, using thioacetamide as both sulfur source and capping agent. X-ray diffractometry (XRD) of the flowers revealed that the cubic structure of In₂S₃; morphological studies examined by scanning electron microscopy (SEM) showed the synthesized In₂S₃ nanostructure was flowerlike hierarchitecture assembled from nanoscale flakes. X-ray photoelectron spectroscopy (XPS) analysis confirmed the stoichiometry of In₂S₃ nanoflowers. Furthermore, the photocatalytic activity studies revealed that the prepared indium(III) sulfide(In₂S₃) nanoflowers exhibit an excellent photocatalytic performance, degrading rapidly the aqueous pharmaceutical solution of Lisinopril under visible light irradiation. These results suggest that In₂S₃ nanoflowers will be a promising candidate of photocatalyst working in thevisible light range.