The development of novel tailor-made photocatalytic reactor for sulfamethoxazole removal: Understanding mechanism and degradation pathway

•Development of a tailor-made photocatalytic system to degrade sulfamethoxazole.•Fabrication of a unique photocatalyst with TiO2-loaded carbon fiber via a rapid microwave process.•The synthesized TiO2-loaded carbon fiber photocatalysts exhibit excellent reusability.•The presented tailor-made photocatalytic reactor demonstrates a low electrical energy per order.