Abstract
The unrestricted use of drug has aroused researcher concern toward its removal from the environment. The present work is aimed to synthesize a highly stable water-soluble nanosize colloidal MnO2 and its application in the degradation of pharmaceuticals waste in aquatic environment. The as-synthesized colloidal MnO2 is systematically characterized by UV–vis, XRD, TEM, DLS, zeta potential and FTIR. The degradation of metronidazole (MTZ) by colloidal MnO2 was studied spectrophotometrically in the presence of ruthenium(III) catalyst in acidic medium under pseudo first-order condition. Our results show that nanosized colloidal MnO2 is an excellent oxidant for the degradation of MTZ catalyzed by ruthenium(III) in aqueous acidic medium. It was observed that the ruthenium(III) as catalyst significantly increases the reaction rate. The overall thermodynamic activation parameters were also calculated. The main oxidation product was identified as 5-nitro-1-(2-oxoethyl)-1H-imidazole-2-carboxylic acid and confirmed by GC–MS analysis. A plausible mechanism was also proposed.
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