Photocatalytic Degradation of Amoxicillin Drug using ZnO/CdS Nanocomposite for Aqueous Solutions by using AOPs

The hydrothermal synthesis of ZnO/CdS nanocomposite studied for photocatalytic degradation of Amoxicillin (AMX) drug. The physical and chemical properties of the prepared ZnO/CdS were characterized using several analyses such as TEM, FE-SEM, TGA, and EDX. The photodegradation of Amoxicillin (AMX) drug was studied by employing UV-Vis light under several conditions in the presence of ZnO-CdS nanocomposite. Influence of several parameters such as AMX concentration (10-80 mg/L), mass of nanocomposite (0.1-0.4 g), and regeneration of ZnO-CdS nanocomposite was studied and optimized. All experiments were carried out under the most optimum conditions, which included a drug concentration of 30 mg/L, a light intensity of 1.2 mW/cm2, and a solution pH of 6.8. The results showed that the photocatalytic efficiency rose with reducing concentration of AMX (95.99%-53.12%) when concentration increased from 10 to 80 mg/L. The photocatalytic degradation increased when the weight of the ZnO-CdS nanocomposite increased (44.43%-98.99%). It was observed that the photocatalytic efficiency of AMX was 80.86%-72.77.85% for the first to fourth cycles. This indicates the best stability of nanocomposites and could be potentially useful in practical batch degradation.