Fabrication of NiFe layered double hydroxide/reduced graphene oxide (NiFe-LDH/rGO) nanocomposite with enhanced sonophotocatalytic activity for the degradation of moxifloxacin

By A. Khataee, Tannaz Sadeghi Rad, Sahand Nikzat, A. Hassani, M. H. Aslan, M. Kobya, Erhan Demirbas. Chemical Engineering Journal, 2019

230 citations recorded by the source corpus.

Abstract Herein a NiFe layered double hydroxide/reduced graphene oxide (NiFe-LDH/rGO) nanocomposite was synthesized in a hydrothermal method. The sonophotocatalytic implementation of NiFe-LDH/rGO nanocomposite was scrutinized for the degradation of moxifloxacin (MOX), as a model-emerging contaminant, from the solution. The structure of the synthesized samples was analyzed by XRD, FE-SEM, EDX, TEM, FTIR, BET, PL, and UV-Vis DRS analyses. To manifest the sonophotocatalytic performance of NiFe-LDH/rGO nanocomposite, the impact of the main operating parameters was examined for the degradation of MOX. The best sonophotocatalytic efficiency of 90.40% was achieved by using 1.0 g/L catalyst, 20 mg/L MOX, and an ultrasonic power of 150 W at a pH of 8 (natural) within 60 min. Moreover, the effects of the addition of various oxidants, dissolved gases, and various scavengers on the decomposition of MOX were investigated. A proposed mechanism was also presented for the decomposition of MOX in the presence of NiFe-LDH/rGO nanocomposite under the sonophotocatalytic system. By-products formed through sonophotocatalytic degradation process were recognized by the gas chromatography-mass spectrometry (GC-MS) technique. Finally, the reusability test of NiFe-LDH/rGO nanocomposite in the MOX degradation revealed that a drop of almost 13% occurred after five successive cycles.

Subfields: Materials Chemistry, Renewable Energy, Sustainability and the Environment

View Paper: https://www.semanticscholar.org/paper/1a113d4773e11a3eefa7bae51ba7ff74f8d4f083