Synthesis ZnO heterostructured nanophotocatalyst simulated solar light irradiation for removal contaminate Carbamazepine in aqueous solution

Abstract

In this study, zinc oxide nanoparticles (ZnO) were produced in aqueous media to photodegrade harmful carbamazepine compounds (CBZ) in aqueous solution under simulated solar-light using the sol-gel technique with zinc chloride and NaOH as precursors. X-ray diffraction (XRD), FTIR analysis, Field Emission Scanning Electron Microscopy (FE-SEM), and UV–vis diffuse reflectance spectra (UV-vis DRS) were used to analyze the ZnO NPs powder. According to the XRD results, ZnO nanoparticles showed a hexagonal symmetry shape with 13 nm particle size value. The absorption bands of ZnO nanoparticles were identified using FT-IR spectra peaking. The ZnO nanoparticles produced in this work are spherical, as seen in the SEM picture, with a band gap of about 3.6 eV. The prepared Zinc Oxide nanoheterostructured photocatalyst utilized excellent performance in reducing Carbamazepine compound with an efficiency of 90%. This study took into account pH solution, catalyst loading, kinetic studies, TOC removal, regeneration, and reusability. The synthesized ZnO successfully removed the Carbamazepine medicine at pH=4. With an R-square of 0.99855, the produced photocatalyst fits well into the pseudo second order model. The ZnO heterostructured nanophotocatalyst retained its outstanding performance after numerous cycles of usage. For these observations, the Zinc Oxide heterostructured photocatalyst for Carbamazepine reduction is a promising photocatalyst.