Electrochemically treated nanoporous TiO2 was employed as a novel electrode to assist in the pho- toelectrochemical degradation of acetaminophen and valacyclovir. The prepared electrode was characterized by scanning electron microscopy （SEM） and energy dispersive spectroscopy （EDS）. Cyclic voltammetry （CV）, Mott-Schottky plots, ultraviolet-visible light （UV-vis） absorbance spec- troscopy, and a total organic carbon （TOC） analyzer were employed to investigate the photoelec- trochemical degradation of acetaminophen and valacyclovir. The results indicated no obvious re- moval of acetaminophen and valacyclovir over 3 h when separate photochemical degradation and electrochemical oxidation were employed. In contrast, acetaminophen and valacyclovir were rapid- ly eliminated via photoelectrochemical degradation. In addition, electrochemically treated nanopo~ rous TiO2 electrodes significantly enhanced the efficacy of the photoelectrochemical degradation of acetaminophen and valacyclovir, by 86.96% and 53.12%, respectively, when compared with un- treated nanoporous TiO2 electrodes. This enhanced performance may have been attributed to the formation of Ti3~, Ti2~, and oxygen vacancies, as well as an improvement in conductivity during the electrochemical reduction process. The effect of temperature was further investigated, where the activation energy of the photoelectrochemical degradation of acetaminophen and valacyclovir was determined to be 9.62 and 18.42 kJ/mol, respectively.
