Abstract
Remediation of antibiotics by photocatalytic oxidation over semiconducting heterojunction substantiated a promising technique for avoiding antimicrobic confrontation. A suitable recyclable and photostable material is a must to evade charge recombination and photocorrosion. In this study, two-dimensional (2D) CeO2 cubic nanoparticles were synthesized by surfactant-assisted sol–gel-based strategy. The obtained 2D CeO2 was coupled with narrow bandgap NiS at different ratios (4.0 ~ 16.0 wt%) to construct NiS/CeO2 heterojunctions having superior visible light absorbance. TEM investigations confirmed the mixed-phase production of NiS/CeO2, which agreed with XRD and XPS characterization. The mesoporous structure evaluation was also established with a surface area range of 166‒187 m2 g‒1. The estimated bandgap of the formed heterojunction with 9% NiS was the minimum at 2.07 eV compared with 2.89 eV for the pristine CeO2. Ciprofloxacin (CIPF) photooxidation was performed over prepared samples as a model antibiotic pollutant. The 12% NiS/CeO2 showed the best-performed photocatalyst with complete mineralization of CIPF in 75 min at 2.0 gL‒1 and a photoreaction rate of 0.0554 min–1. This progressive heterojunction photocatalyst conserved 96.5% of its initial photoactivity after five regenerations. The improved light harvesting, surface structure, and superior carrier separation are the critical factors for this innovative NiS/CeO2’s performance.
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The Deanship of Scientific Research (DSR) at King Abdulaziz University (KAU), Jeddah, Saudi Arabia, has funded this project under grant no (KEP-PhD-8-130-1443).
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Funding was provided by King Abdulaziz University (KAU), Jeddah, Saudi Arabia, Grant No (KEP-PhD-8-130-1443), Ibraheem A. Mkhalid.
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Alsolami, E.S., Mkhalid, I.A., Shawky, A. et al. Sol–gel assisted growth of nanostructured NiS/CeO2 p-n heterojunctions for fast photooxidation of ciprofloxacin antibiotic under visible light. Appl Nanosci 13, 6445–6455 (2023). https://doi.org/10.1007/s13204-023-02937-9
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s13204-023-02937-9