Ability of FeNi3/SiO2/TiO2 nanocomposite to degrade amoxicillin in wastewater samples in solar light-driven processes

This research aims to develop a novel photocatalyst with excellent photocatalytic performance and investi-gate its potential to remove amoxicillin (AMOX) from an aqueous solution. First, FeNi3/SiO2/TiO2 was charac-terized using X-ray diffraction, scanning electron microscope, Brunauer-Emmett-Teller analysis, Fourier transform infrared spectroscopy, and scanning electron microscopy. Then, the FeNi3/SiO2/TiO2 nanocompo-site was tested for its ability to degrade AMOX in a batch solar-photocatalysis reactor. The effects of parame-ters such as pH, contact time, initial concentration, and nanocomposite dose were investigated during the experiments. The results demonstrated the performance by degrading 10 mg/L of AMOX solution to 96 % after 30 min in the dark and 90 min of solar irradiation and using 50 mg/L of nanocomposite at pH =5. Fur-thermore, the kinetic of the degradation rate of AMOX followed the pseudo-first-order equation with R2 > 0.987, and this reaction's constant rate of degradation was obtained as 0.03 1/min. The used catalyst showed high recycling efficiency and stability over four photocatalytic cycles. This study showed that FeNi3/SiO2/TiO2 magnetic nanocomposite in a solar-photocatalytic reactor under optimum operating conditions has a reasonable efficiency in the degradation of AMOX.(c) 2022 SAAB. Published by Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.