Vol.:(0123456789) Reaction Kinetics, Mechanisms and Catalysis https://doi.org/10.1007/s11144-019-01571-3 1 3 Reaction kinetics of mesotrione removal catalyzed by TiO 2 in the presence of diferent electron acceptors Marina Lazarević 1  · Daniela Šojić Merkulov 1  · Vesna Despotović 1  · Aleksandar Djordjevic 1  · Nina Finčur 1  · Nemanja Banić 1  · Biljana Abramović 1 Received: 16 January 2019 / Accepted: 29 March 2019 © Akadémiai Kiadó, Budapest, Hungary 2019 Abstract Many parameters infuence the reaction kinetics of photocatalytic degradation of organic pollutants and their efects need to be evaluated. In this work, a full facto- rial experimental design was used to study the main parameter efects in detail and their interactions on the kinetics of mesotrione removal using TiO 2 Hombikat (TiO 2 ) suspension under simulated sunlight. The parameters which afect the efciency of mesotrione photocatalytic degradation such as the loading of TiO 2 , concentration of KBrO 3 , absence/presence of fullerenol (FNP), as well as O 2 purging were investi- gated. The photocatalytic degradation efciency of mesotrione (%) in the range from 43.3 to 96.7% and apparent rate constants (k app ), obtained by exponential ftting, in the range from 1.849 × 10 −2 min −1 to 6.228 × 10 −2 min −1 with coefcient of determi- nation ~ 0.99 are used as responses. From the statistical analysis in the case of both responses, the highest infuence on the system has parameter loading of TiO 2 . The highest percentage of mesotrione removal was achieved with all parameters at high level, while the highest value of k app was obtained under the same experimental con- ditions but in the absence of fullerenol. Keywords TiO 2 photocatalysis · Kinetics · Mesotrione · Electron acceptors · Fullerenol · Full factorial design Electronic supplementary material The online version of this article (https://doi.org/10.1007/s1114 4-019-01571-3) contains supplementary material, which is available to authorized users. * Daniela Šojić Merkulov daniela.sojic@dh.uns.ac.rs 1 Department of Chemistry, Biochemistry and Environmental Protection, Faculty of Sciences, University of Novi Sad, Trg Dositeja Obradovića 3, 21000 Novi Sad, Serbia