Developing sustainable technologies to obtain drinking water has become a necessity in recent years. Advanced oxidation technologies seem to provide a solution by generating reactive oxygen species capable of mineralizing pollutants and disarming bacteria. In this work, we employed an innovative photoelectrochemical reactor designed for the disinfection of bacteria-loaded waters. The reactor chamber was composed of a photoanode made of vitreous carbon foam impregnated with an exfoliated graphitic carbon nitride material modified with barbituric acid. The co-polymerization of dicyandiamide and barbituric acid successfully improved its photocatalytic activity (tested for Rhodamine B in preliminary experiments). The best performing carbon nitride material was deposited into a glassy carbon foam through dip-coating.
The carbon foam alone can act as an anode in the photoelectrochemical reactor but requires high applied currents (>72 mA). After loading with the catalyst, the amount of energy necessary to activate the disinfection process decreases by increasing charge transfer. At the same time, combining the carbon foam with a photoactive material allowed both electro- and photocatalytic reactions to occur. The impregnated foam leads to a fast and complete photoelectrocatalytic disinfection of simulated and real waters, opening the possibility for future potable water solutions.