الملخص الإنجليزي
Significant attention has been paid to antibiotics among the various medications, since environmental contamination of antibiotics spontaneously mutates the bacterial genetics and promotes bacterial resistance to antibiotics, and this leads to serious health hazards and environmental issues. In this study, CdO, ZnO and bimetallic CdxZn(1-x)O photocatalytic nanomaterials were prepared via hydrothermal and microwave-assisted methods using cadmium nitrate tetrahydrate, zinc nitrate hexahydrate and Sodium hydroxide as precursors. The prepared samples were characterized by X-ray diffraction (XRD), X-ray photoelectron spectroscopy (XPS), Ultraviolet - diffuse reflection spectroscopy (UV-DRS), scanning electron microscopy (SEM) and energy dispersive X-ray spectrophotometry (EDX). The microwave-assisted prepared samples show sharp XRD diffraction peak compared to samples prepared by hydrothermal method and indicates greater crystallinity and greater grain size. The estimated diameters of grain sizes were 13.18, 27.98, 25.98, 30.35, 14.89 and 15.44 nm for hydrothermally prepared samples of ZnO, Cd0.2Zn0.8O, Cd0.4Zn0.6O, Cd0.6Zn0.4O, Cd0.8Zn0.2O and CdO, respectively, whereas the respective diameters of the grain sizes for microwave-assisted prepared samples were 16.78, 33.78, 31.96, 37.68, 14.21 and 16.43 nm, respectively. SEM analyses show uniform distribution of hexagonal plates and nanoflowers for CdO and ZnO, respectively, whereas mixed irregular morphologies are observed for CdxZn(1-x)O samples prepared by both the methods. Study on photocatalytic activity revealed enhancement in photocatalytic activity by bimetallic CdxZn(1-x)O in degradation of levofloxacin and cephalexin under solar light irradiations. Around 96% of levofloxacin and 90% of cephalexin are degraded over a period of 4 hours under solar light irradiation with bimetallic catalyst.
