Increasing water pollution has become one of the major concerns throughout the world. The ever- growing population and its growing needs have caused a wide variety of new emerging contaminants (EC) in the environment which eventually find their way in the water system. Out of various EC, pharmaceuticals are a major concern because of its toxicity to living organisms and causing development of anti-microbial resistance, endocrine disruption, bioaccumulation, liver and kidney disease, inhibition of photosynthesis in some algal species, etc. India is the third largest producer of pharmaceuticals in world and around 85% are consumed domestically. 64% people in India use medicine without the prescription of doctor and for most of the drugs and only less than 50% gets absorbed in the body and the remaining comes out in the form of urine and faeces. Wastewater treatment plants (WWTP) has been found out to be main source for pharmaceuticals in environment since these WWTP collects discharges from all places, however biological treatment usually adopted in WWTP have been found to be not removing completely these pharmaceuticals. Further, the highest reported antibiotics concentration in water bodies has been reported in India. So, there is a need to degrade these pharmaceuticals after biological treatment.
Advanced oxidation process (AOP) has been identified as an emerging process for both disinfection and trace organics removal including EC. Photocatalysis is one promising AOP utilizing a semiconductor catalyst and when light is incident on its surface, then electron (e-) and hole (h+) pairs are generated. Reactive oxygen species are generated from these e- and h+ and they degrade the pollutants. However single semiconductor photocatalyst has several limitations and countermeasures. Thus, the present study aims on photocatalyst improvement and its use for pharmaceuticals degradation.