Hana Aminipoya - Department of Chemistry, Central Tehran Branch, Islamic Azad University, Tehran, Iran.
Azar Bagheri Ghomi - Department of Chemistry, Central Tehran Branch, Islamic Azad University, Tehran, Iran.
Ali Niazi - Department of Chemistry, Central Tehran Branch, Islamic Azad University, Tehran, Iran.

It was shown that the structure and particle size of zirconia nanoparticles has been controlled through the homogeneous precipitation process by using templates. Hexamine as the template led to ZrO۲ nanoparticles with tetragonal structure, whereas coffee extract favored monoclinic structures. Field Emission Scanning electron microscopy (FeSEM), Transmission electron microscopy (TEM) measurements, Infrared and Raman analysis were used to view how the structure may possibly affect their spectrum characteristic.  Using these pure m- and t-ZrO۲ phases as catalyst, were studied photocatalytic degradation of ciprofloxacin (CIP). Higher degradation efficiency (۵۰%) of the drug was observed at pH۵.۵ after ۱۵ min using t-ZrO۲ phase. 

FT-IR, Monoclinic, Raman spectroscopy, TEM, Tetragonal, ZrO۲