CdO nanoplates for photocatalytic degradation of Levofloxacin and Nizatidine under natural solar light irradiation

Increasing demand for clean water due to the rapid development of industry, population growth and long-term droughts have become an issue worldwide. Sustainable technologies to address this challenge have epitomised the current trends in environmental research. In this work, three types of cadmium oxide (CdO) photocatalysts with nanoplate like morphology were prepared by a simple hydrothermal method. The prepared samples were characterized by various analytical techniques such as XRD, XPS, UV-DRS, SEM and EDX. XRD studies revealed that the prepared CdO samples were of the cubic phase structure. The grain sizes of CdO nanoplates CdO (1:4), CdO (1:5) and CdO (1:6) were 27.22, 28.29 and 28.41 nm, respectively. XPS and EDS analysis confirmed the stoichiometry of CdO samples. The CdO nanostructures samples possessed band gaps from 2.4 to 2.5 eV and therefore could be activated by solar light. The CdO exhited enhanced photocatalytic performance for the degradation of Nizatidine and Levofloxacin under solar light irradiation and around 80% of the pharmaceuticals were degraded within 4 hrs. These results suggest that CdO will be the promising candidate for the decontamination of hazardous low concentrated pollutions in water.