Degradation of Ciprofloxacin Using Magnetic Zinc Oxide Loaded Graphene Oxide for Enhanced Photocatalytic Performance Under Visible and Solar and UV Light Irradiation

Abstract In the present study, we employed the low‐temperature hydrothermal method for synthesizing Fe 3 O 4 /ZnO/GO catalyst for degrading Ciprofloxacin (CIP) during irradiation by different lights, that is, UV, visible, and solar. The researchers investigated the effect of initial CIP concentration, Fe 3 O 4 /ZnO/GO mass, pH, and contact time. The synthesized catalyst was subjected to different analysis methods, that is, BET and BJH, SEM, XRD, TEM, FTIR, VSM, PL, and UV–vis spectra for defining its specifications. According to results, CIP degradation using the studied catalyst under different light sources was as follows: 100% after 40 min for UV light (reaction rate coefficient of 0.141 min −1 ), 100% after 75 min for visible light (reaction rate coefficient of 0.089 min −1 ), and 94.2% for sun light (reaction rate coefficient of 0.051 min −1 ). The toxicity of treated solution by the studied system (according to the mortality of Daphnia magna) was detected to be suitable under three lights; all of the toxicity vanished under both UV and visible light while only 90% of solution toxicity was eliminated under solar light. Eventually, based on BOD 5 /COD results, the evaluated system under all three light sources had the capability of providing degradable effluents and employing them as a pretreatment system prior to biological processes.