Sequential microbial-photocatalytic degradation of imidacloprid

In the present study, the application of sequential biological and photocatalytic process was evaluated as a feasible process for the degradation of imidacloprid (IMI) in soil. Photocatalysis was carried out as a post and pre-treatment to the biological process as Microbial Photocatalytic (MP) and Photocatalytic Microbial (PM), respectively, to enhance the degradation and mineralization of IMI in soil. By both the processes, there was an enhancement in the percentage degradation of IMI i.e 86.2% for PM and 94.6% for MP process. The obtained results indicate that MP process is apparently more efficient in degradation of IMI which was observed with 15 days of biological treatment followed by 18 h of photocatalytic degradation (15 d + 18 h). The present work also reveals that though the difference in terms of the degradation of IMI after 5 d + 18 h, 10 d + 18 h & 15 d + 18 h of MP process is not drastic, yet significant variation has been observed in terms of mineralization that truly signifies the removal of IMI from the soil. The LC analysis has shown that the intermediates formed during MP process are more and smaller in comparison to PM process, which further provides evidence that MP process is better than PM process for effective degradation of IMI in soil.