**Author details**

Nilce Ortiz

and increase in resistance. The concept of chemical activity helps to understand the EPs environmental fate, distribution, quantification, and prediction of the ecological partitioning theory of the chemicals in aquatic systems as water column, sediment (mostly organic matter), and biota (lipids and proteins) address single compound or mixtures reaching the equilibrium. The chemical activity relies on partition coefficients which are only available

94 Emerging Pollutants - Some Strategies for the Quality Preservation of Our Environment

cleanup applications; they have efficiently decomposed and removed a variety of pollutants, promoting the generation of OH radicals using oxidation reactions with in situ active oxygen generated upon light irradiation. In water purification, photodegradation of contaminants in real water samples has become an important topic of research in recent years. The results of the kinetics studies of photodecomposition and carbon sorption provide valuable insights about the kinetics models: pseudo-first-order (Eq. (1)), pseudo-second-order (Eq. (2)), and intraparticle with the determination of photodecomposition and adsorption rates. The ESI-MS analytical technique allows the measurement of the EPs methylene blue photodecomposition. Before the photodecomposition reaction, the methylene blue compound was

The UV spectra of amoxicillin (AMX) and the amoxicillin decomposition products (ADPs) as ADP1,2, ADP4,5, and ADP8,9 consisted of two peaks at λ = 230 and 275 nm, similar with AMX. This effect is due to the para-substituted phenolic group, which do not change in the AMX and ADPs skeleton and is the primary contributor to the observed UV spectra. The development of analytical technique allows the identification and quantification of the ampicillin and ampicillin degradation by-products as 2-hydroxy-3-phenylpyrazine (HPP) in the environment. The results indicate their presence in 42–79% of the monitored rivers and household ponds. In these locations, the HPP concentrations were in the range of 1.3–413.3 ngL−1.. The amoxicillin and many antibiotics can act as a complex ligand with several possible sites for metal ions like Cu (II), Zn (II), and Cd (II) for coordination on penicillin. The kinetics and thermodynamics calculations indicate neighboring group effects of the probable complexation sites, of metals and the C=O of the antibiotic β-lactamic group and the NH amido penicillin group. Published works related to a variety of antibiotics in polluted soil and water environment. Therefore, it is of great significance to explore the ecological risk of the combined exposure to various antibiotics. The mixture of different types of antibiotics may lead to varying joint effects on the bacteria, synergistic, additive, and some antagonistic effects. The biocarbon acts as an alternative adsorption matrix for water treatment and emerging pollutants removal, usually showing better environmental results in comparison with activated carbon, and also in many cases, it provides better potential energy supplied for lignocellulosic

FAPESP (São Paulo Research Foundation) and CNPq (National Council of Technological and

only m/z 284, and after 1 day of photodecomposition, there are several peaks.

has emerged as a promising photocatalyst for environmental

as experimental values. TiO2

materials.

**Acknowledgements**

Scientific Development).

Address all correspondence to: nortizbr@gmail.com

Institute for Nuclear and Energy Researches—IPEN, São Paulo, Brazil
