A Brief Review on the Latest Developments on Pharmaceutical Compound Degradation Using g-C3N4-Based Composite Catalysts

Abstract

Pharmaceutical compounds (PCs) are one of the most notable water pollutants of the current age with severe impacts on the ecosystem. Hence, scientists and engineers are continuously working on developing different materials and technologies to eradicate PCs from aqueous media. Among various new-age materials, graphitic carbon nitride (g-C3N4) is one of the wonder substances with excellent catalytic property. The current review article describes the latest trend in the application of g-C3N4-based catalyst materials towards the degradation of various kinds of drugs and pharmaceutical products present in wastewater. The synthesis procedure of different g-C3N4-based catalysts is covered in brief, and this is followed by different PCs degraded as described by different workers. The applicability of these novel catalysts in the real field has been highlighted along with different optimization techniques in practice. Different techniques often explored to characterize the g-C3N4-based materials are also described. Finally, existing challenges in this field along with future perspectives are presented before concluding the article.