Khatereh Pakzad - Faculty of Chemistry, University of Mazandaran, Babolsar ۴۷۴۱۶-۱۳۵۳۴, Iran
Heshmatollah Alinezhad - Faculty of Chemistry, University of Mazandaran, Babolsar ۴۷۴۱۶-۱۳۵۳۴, Iran
Mahmoud Nasrollahzadeh - Department of Chemistry, Faculty of Science, University of Qom, Qom ۳۷۱۶۱۴۶۶۱۱, Iran

The application of plant based materials for nanomaterial production is a simple, cheap and environmentally friendly method.Lately, to overcome the stability problems and prevent the accumulation of metal NPs, Fe3O4 has been employed as a support in theseparation and recovery of these NPs [1,2]. In addition, it does not require any costly or hazardous chemicals [3]. The extracts ofEuphorbia maculata aerial parts were used in a green synthesis method in order to prepare magnetic Ni@Fe3O4 NPs. Thesynthesized nanoparticles were characterized by various methods. X-Ray Diffraction results confirmed the presence of Ni@Fe3O4nanoparticles (Fig. 1a). According to the FESEM analysis of Ni@Fe3O4 synthesized from Euphorbia maculata extract, themorphology of the particles was found to be spherical. The particles were are relatively clustered and the average crystallite sizeswere about 30 (Fig. 1b).The photocatalytic activity of the synthesized NPs was tested in the degradation of different metronidazole in aqueous mediumunder UV irradiation. The effects of different parameters such as nanoparticle dosage, contact time, pH, and initial antibioticconcentrations on the capacity of the photocatalyst adsorption were also studied. Results showed that the highest removal efficiencyof metronidazole antibiotic in the reaction of Ni@Fe3O4 nanoparticles, at the optimal conditions was equal to 91%. Furthermore,good nanocatalytic stability of the NPs in the degradation of antibiotic was observed after the recycling. The photocatalystefficiency did not considerably change after five cycles, which indicated excellent photocatalytic stability.

green synthesis; Ni@Fe3O4 nanoparticle; photocatalyst; antibiotic