Abstract

The ciprofloxacin (CIP) antibiotic was degraded using Sm-Nd2O3 decorated Thymine doped gC3N4 (Sm-Nd2O3/T-gC3N4) nanocomposite under visible light irradiation. The oxygen-containing component like thymine doped in the gC3N4 significantly improves the active sites of the catalyst and its ability to absorb light, which highly influences the adsorption and photocatalytic activity. The chemical and morphological analysis of the nanocomposite were studied utilizing the XRD, FTIR, HRSEM, HRTEM, EDAX, UV-DRS, XPS, BET, and PL. The photocatalytic activity was investigated under several factors such as pH, initial concentration of CIP, catalyst dosage, inorganic anions, and real lake water sample, to optimize and enhance the photocatalytic efficiency of Sm-Nd2O3/T-gC3N4 nanocomposite, as a result, the degradation efficiency achieved to 99.65 % within 120 min with the rate constant of 0.0472 min−1. The Z-scheme mechanism of the Sm-Nd2O3/T-gC3N4 photocatalyst was proposed based on the Mott-Schottky and trapping experiments. Further, the degradation pathway of CIP was postulated based on the intermediates, identified by the LC-MS analysis

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