Exploring the photocatalytic efficacy of carbonaceous materials in drug degradation: a contemporary review

Drugs/medicines are used for the recognition, prevention, and treatment of a disease. Due to various kind of infections, diseases and unwellness, the use of drugs/medicines has been increased exponentially. However, drugs can have both short- and long-term complications on both physical and mental health. Other than causing harm to living beings, drugs also cause environmental pollution. Therefore, sensing or degradation of drugs becomes an important task for the healthy life. Drug’s degradation can be achieved by various chemical processes—oxidation, hydrolysis, and photocatalysis. Photocatalysis is a popular, acceptable, and environmental friendly approach for the degradation of small toxic molecules. Carbon-based allotropes like graphene, graphene oxide, and others can be used for efficient photocatalysis of drugs. This review focused on the understanding the potentiality of graphene oxide, reduced graphene oxide, and graphyne in support of photocatalysis of drugs.