Mesoporous Aluminosilicate Zinc Oxide Photocatalytic Degradation of Pharmaceutical Pollutants

Abstract

The current study focuses on the creation of catalysts that have several uses. Supports for attaching ZnO catalysts are made of mesoporous alumino-silicate materials with varying SiO2/Al2O3 ratios (type Siral), and the amount of Al in them ranges from 20% to 70%. The alumino-silicate support materials are great for loading active components because they have a lot of surface area, a well-defined regular structure, and few mesopores that are spread out. We carry out the synthesis of the mesoporous alumino-silicate-supported zinc oxide photocatalyst (Siral/ZnO) using a mechano-chemical grinding approach. Different characterization methods, such as UV-visible spectroscopy, X-ray powder diffraction (XRD), SEM, and Brunauer-Emmett-Teller (BET), evaluate the properties of the heterogeneous catalysts and the effectiveness of ZnO addition. We use these supports to enhance their catalytic efficiency by examining responses related to the decomposition of pharmaceutical contaminants and pigments like Ibuprofen (IBP). The finding results revealed that mesoporous structure of Siral/ZnO NCs with an average crystallite size of 1-50nm with the Type IV N2 adsorption and desorption isotherms show a noticeable photocatalytic activity under UV-visible light irradiation. The efficiency of the photo-degradation increases with increasing the weight percentage from 5wt.% to 60wt.% of ZnO NPs, and it reaches 85.18% for Siral70/60% ZnO after 4hours. Siral/ZnO NCs photocatalysts exhibit exceptional photostability and reusability when it comes to the degradation of organic molecules.