Decoration of 1,3 oxazole modified g- C3N4 by Bio-synthesized Ag nanoparticle for the photodegradation of pharmaceutical effluent: Clotrimazole

Abstract

The current work demonstrates the fabrication of Ag nanoparticle (Ag nps) loaded oxazole modified g- C3N4(COA) photo catalysts. A novel green method was opted to synthesize silver nanoparticles using seed extract of Nigella sativa. The photo catalyst was comprehensively characterized by Fourier transform infrared spectroscopy (FT-IR), X-ray diffraction (XRD), Scanning electron microscopy/energy dispersive X-ray spectroscopy (SEM/EDS), High-resolution transmission electron microscopy (HR-TEM) and X-ray photoelectron spectroscopy (XPS). The optical activities were analysed by double beam UV–Vis and photoluminescence. The catalytic potential of synthesized COA have been tested for degradation of Clotrimazole (CTZ) pharmaceutical effluent as model pollutant. The photo degradation results have shown that about 94.5 % of CTZ get degraded over the duration of 120 min. To explore the real scale application, the effect of catalysts dosage and pH have been studied. The major active radical species responsible for the degradation have been identified by radical scavenging experiments.