Photocatalytic degradation of phenylephrine hydrochloride in aqueous solutions by synthesized SnO2-doped ZnO nanophotocatalyst

ZnO and SnO2-doped ZnO nanoparticles were prepared by a sol–gel method for the first time. X-ray diffraction (XRD) and scanning electron microscopy (SEM) were used to characterize the ZnO and SnO2-doped ZnO samples. Advanced oxidation processes (AOPs) have proved very effective in treatment of the various hazardous organic pollutants such as surfactants and pharmaceuticals in water. The photocatalytic degradation of drug phenylephrine hydrochloride (PHE) was studied as model organic pollutant. Under UV exposure the process was investigated with ZnO and SnO2-doped ZnO. The degradation was studied under different conditions including irradiation time, pH, catalyst concentration, phenylephrine hydrochloride concentration and potassium peroxydisulfate as an oxidant. The experimental results indicated that maximum degradation (99.4±1.0%) of drug occurred with SnO2-doped ZnO catalyst. The results demonstrated that photodegradation efficiency of SnO2-doped ZnO was significantly higher than that of undoped ZnO.