ABSTRACT
Abstract The organic compound caffeine when detected in environmental matrices such as surface waters and groundwater is considered as an emerging contaminant, in which its effects are still unknown. Therefore, in the present research, zinc oxide-based catalysts impregnated with iron and silver were prepared for the reaction of caffeine degradation by heterogeneous photocatalysis. The wet impregnation method with excess solvent was applied to the preparation of the materials, later they were characterized by adsorption of N2, X-ray diffraction and photoacoustic spectroscopy. Then, the photodegradation, photolysis and adsorption tests were carried out, in which it was observed that only the presence of the radiation or photocatalysts could not sufficiently degrade the caffeine, however when combined radiation with all the catalysts studied here presented degradation above 70% at the end of 300 minutes of the reaction, and the best catalyst studied was that containing 8% Ag in non-calcined ZnO. Thus, these results point out that the methodology employed in this research, both for the preparation of the catalysts and in the process of the photocatalysis reaction, was efficient in the degradation of the emerging contaminant, caffeine, which could later be used for a mixture of other contaminants.