Controllable synthesis of Ce-doped ZnO: TiO2 nanospheres for photocatalytic degradation of MB dye and levofloxacin under sunlight light irradiation

Abstract

Wastewater from the textiles and pharmaceutical industries contains harmful inorganic and organic pollutants, which is not only harmful for aquatic life but also mutagenic to human. To minimize these problems, photocatalytic degradation is the one of the most promising remediation method. In the present work Ce doped ZnO:TiO2 nanocomposite powder samples, taking concentration as 0, 0.5, 1, and 1.5 at% coded as CZT1, CZT2, CZT3 and CZT4, respectively were synthesized. As prepared powder samples were characterized by various techniques including XRD, FE-SEM, UV–Vis Spectrophotometer and Photoluminescence. The X-ray diffraction pattern examined, all samples contains polycrystalline nature and their crystallite size was, from 5.06 nm to 2.3 nm as the doping concentration of Ce was increased. Field-emission scanning electron microscopy (FE-SEM) demonstrates the surface morphology of powder samples and determined the nanosphere like morphology. The bandgap of the samples varying from 3.36 eV to 2.62 eV, whereas the photoluminescence spectra (PL) of the sample show the visible emission at 475 nm. The CZT nanocomposite powder samples were characterized for the photocatalytic degradation of the Levofloxacin and MB dye. The degradation efficiency of the samples for was obtained for MB and levofloxacin i.e. 98% and 97.5% respectively.