Many pharmaceuticals have been recently identified at trace levels worldwide in the
aquatic environment. Among them, the highly consumed paracetamol (PCM), an analgesic and
antipyretic drug, is largely being accumulated in the aquatic environment due to ine cient removal
by conventional sewage treatment plants. This work deals with the treatment of PCM, used as
a model pharmaceutical contaminant of emerging concern, by catalytic wet peroxide oxidation using
clay-based materials as catalysts. The catalysts were prepared from natural clays, extracted from
four di erent deposits using acid-activated treatment, calcination, and pillarization with Fe and
Co. Pillared clays show the highest catalytic activity owing to the presence of metals, allowing to
remove completely the PCM after 6 h under the following operating conditions: CPCM = 100 mg
L1, CH2O2 = 472 mg L1, Ccat = 2.5 g L1, initial pH = 3.5 and T = 80 C. The prepared materials
presented high stability since leached iron was measured at the end of reaction and found to be lower
than 0.1 mg L1.
This work is a result of the Project “AIProcMat@N2020—Advanced Industrial Processes and Materials
for a Sustainable Northern Region of Portugal 2020”, with the reference NORTE-01-0145-FEDER-000006,
supported by Norte Portugal Regional Operational Programme (NORTE 2020), under the Portugal 2020
Partnership Agreement, through the European Regional Development Fund (ERDF); the Associate Laboratory
LSRE-LCM—UID/EQU/50020/2019—funded by national funds through FCT/MCTES (PIDDAC); and CIMO
(UID/AGR/00690/2019) through FEDER under Program PT2020.
