Photocatalytic degradation of phenylephrine hydrochloride in aqueoussolutions by synthesized SnO2-doped ZnO

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

Keywords:

SnO2-doped ZnO , phenylephrine hydrochloride , potassium peroxydisulfate , photocatalytic degradation