Visible Light Driven Photodegradation of Antibiotic Using Sodium Barium Stannate Perovskite Structured Photocatalyst

Abstract

In this study, BaSnO₃ and Na-BaSnO₃ perovskites were fabricated by using the Sol-gel method. The synthesized perovskites were used to photocatalytically degrade Ciprofloxacin (CF) under sunlight irradiation. EDX, FTIR, UV–vis, and XRD analysis was used to study the synthesized perovskites. The optical band gap calculated for BaSnO₃ and Na-BaSnO₃ using Tauc's equation and corresponds to a value of 3.3 and 2.9 eV, respectively. The PZC value of both doped and undoped perovskites was determined to be at pH 7. In the case of Na-BaSnO₃, the average crystallite size increased from 0.93 to 7.87 nm. Several parameters, including pH effect, catalyst dose, and pollutant concentration at different temperatures (30, 40, 50°C) values were studied to efficiently degrade CF. The result showed that the degradation percentage increased as the concentration of the antibiotic was increased to 5 ppm (18.7%) and was highest at 7 ppm (65.6%). At optimum concentration of 13 and 7 ppm and at photocatalyst dose of 20 and 10 mg for Na-BaSnO₃ and BaSnO₃, respectively, at Point of Zero charge (PZC) value of 7 and 50°C was 71.6%. Conclusively, Na-BaSnO₃ showed higher degradation of CF compared to BaSnO₃ (57.9%).