Oral Presentation Royal Australian Chemical Institute National Congress 2026

ANbO3 (A =Na, K, Ag, Li) photocatalysts for organic pollutant degradation (136731)

Chantelle Falanga 1 , Cameron Shearer 2
  1. Chemistry, Adelaide University, Adelaide, South Australia, Australia
  2. Chemistry, Adelaide University, Adelaide , South Australia , Australia

The planetary boundary corresponding to chemical pollution has already been exceeded, with humans and the environment experiencing negative consequences from exposure to novel chemical entities.1 Photocatalysis is an enticing method that can be used to remediate synthetic organic pollutants and re-establish Earth in its safe operating space. Current remediation strategies fail to effectively remove these pollutants from water and can form toxic byproducts from wastewater treatment plant processing. A photocatalyst that can effectively break down all types of organic pollutants into non-harmful products is yet to be discovered,2,3 and herein, ANbO3 (A = Na, K, Ag, Li) photocatalysts with a perovskite structure are investigated. The wide band gaps of these photocatalysts enable them to drive chemical transformation, which is critical for pollutant degradation.3 The ANbO3 (A = Na, K, Ag, Li) photocatalysts were synthesised and doped with lanthanum to reduce nanoparticle size and electron-hole recombination in order to enhance photocatalytic activity. Among these materials, AgNbO3 was the only photocatalyst that could absorb visible light and demonstrated the highest degradation of methyl orange (La 20 mol%) with activity comparable to commercial photocatalyst TiO2. This photocatalyst was found to degrade the tyre wear pollutant N-(1,3-dimethylbutyl)-N′-phenyl-p-phenylenediamine-quinone (6-PPD-Q); however, could not break a C-F bond, which was underpinned by its mechanism of degradation via the superoxide radical anion. Furthermore, AgNbO3 La 20 mol % exhibited degradation of methyl orange within field-derived samples collected from Adelaide metropolitan areas, albeit with reduced activity. This positions these photocatalysts as promising materials for improving remediation strategies.

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