Photocatalytic Degradation of Sumatriptan Succinate by ZnO, Fe Doped ZnO and TiO2-ZnO Nanocatalysts

Pharmaceutical pollutants are toxic trace components in natural environment. In this work, removing of Sumatriptan Succinate from the contaminated water by photocatalytic degradation reaction was investigated. Nano particles of ZnO, Fe (0.01 and 0.05) doped ZnO and TiO2-ZnO composites were constructed by co precipitation method and characterized by FTIR, XRD, XRF, TGA, FE-SEM, BET-BJH and UV-Vis spectroscopy methods. Then, the effects of various operating parameters of reaction temperature (10 to 80°C), reaction time (15 to 60 min), pH of solution (4-11), concentration of pharmaceutical pollutant (8 to 25 ᵡ10-6 M), dose of nanocatalysts (0.8 to 4.5 mg) and the stability or reusability of produced nanocatalysts on the degradation efficiency were studied. Based on the reported results, maximum degradation efficiency is about 70% for Fe (0.05) doped ZnO with 60 min reaction time, 1.5 mg catalyst weight and contaminating concentration of 8ᵡ10-6 M.