Biomass-derived active Carbon@ZnO/SnO2 novel visible-light photocatalyst for rapid degradation of linezolid antibiotic and imidacloprid insecticide

Abstract

Creation of novel clean light responsive photocatalytic organization requires adequate technical skills and exhaustive efforts. The aim of the current study is to create novel, highly influential photocatalyst frameworks working under visible-light utilizing ZnO/SnO2 nanocomposites in conjugation with biomass originated active carbon (AC) for environmental concerns. The ZnO/SnO2 nanocomposite was created by the sol-gel approach followed by ultra-sonication technique to form trio combination with AC. The XRD investigation displays rutile tetragonal structure of SnO2 and hexagonal wurtzite phase of ZnO in all fabricated nanocomposites. The XPS and FTIR investigations confirmed the elemental composition and successful establishment of trio structure of AC, ZnO and SnO2. Perfect tailoring during the creation process results in achieving band gap values of various AC@ZnO/SnO2 nanocomposites in visible region. The FESEM images of AC@ZnO/SnO2 nanocomposites exhibit particles, rods and sheets like-structures confirming the successful creation of impeccable organization among AC, ZnO and SnO2. The HR-TEM image of 10% AC@ZnO/SnO2 nanocomposite revealed the crystallographic planes (101) and (110) for hexagonal wurtzite ZnO and tetragonal rutile of SnO2. Among various created nanostructures, the 10% AC@ZnO/SnO2 trio organization was found to be the most influential with 94.6 % removal of target linezolid antibiotic and almost complete destruction of insecticide imidacloprid and MB complex structure in just 25 minutes under visible light condition. The 10% AC@ZnO/SnO2 photocatalyst was found to be the most influential candidate giving ⁓ 8.16 times higher detrimental skills than that of pure SnO2. These extraordinary outputs by the newly fabricated 10%AC@ZnO/SnO2 photocatalyst open a new gateway to exploit this promising material towards various environmental issues.