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A sustainable and facile method was used to synthesize eco-friendly and reusable CuS@Fe3O4 nanoparticles by kalanchoe plant extract. The ability of synthesized catalyst was examined for photocatalytic degradation of yellow 3G. The FESEM and BET images revealed uniform spherical and mesoporous nanostructures with an average size of 72 nm. XRD results showed the presence of both, Fe3O4 and CuS crystals. FTIR spectra in the range of 400–4000 cm−1 showed several peaks which belonged to Fe–O and Cu–S tensile vibrations. The VSM results showed that it kept its magnetic property even after adding kalanchoe extract to the photocatalyst. The PL spectra elucidated that CuS@Fe3O4/Kalanchoe has more efficient photocatalytic performance than CuS and CuS @ Fe3O4. Conditions such as pH, catalyst dosage, and initial dye concentrations were optimized at room temperature. Results revealed that the optimum point of different parameters was pH 3, catalyst concentration of 0.3 g/L, and 10 mg/L of yellow 3G. The pollutant's photocatalytic degradation kinetics followed the pseudo-first-order kinetics model with a rate constant (k) of 0.226 min−1 at optimum conditions. Due to the promising activity of CuS@Fe3O4/Kalanchoe in the photodegradation of yellow 3G, it can be proposed to remove other hazardous dyes. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This study aimed to synthesize a new magnetic photocatalytic nanosystem composed of Ag-CuFe2O4@WO3 and to investigate its photodegradation efficiency for two drug pollutants of Gemfibrozil (GEM) and Tamoxifen (TAM) under Ultraviolet (UV) light irradiation. In this regard, the effect of pH, catalyst dosage, and drug concentration was thoroughly determined. The largest photodegradation level for GEM (81%) and TAM (83%) was achieved at pH 5, a photocatalyst dosage of 0.2 g/L, drug concentration of 5 mg/L, and contact time of 150 min. The drug photodegradation process followed the pseudo first-order kinetic model. In addition to the photodegradation effect, the nanocomposites were proved to be efficient in terms of antibacterial activity, proportional to the Ag doping level. The Ag-CuFe2O4@WO3 nanocomposite exhibited a stable, efficient performance without an obvious catalytic loss after five successive cycles. Taken together, the developed magnetic photocatalyst is able to simultaneously disinfect wastewater streams and to degrade pharmaceutical contaminants and thus shows a promising potential for purification of multi-contaminant water systems. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In this study, for the first time, the Ca/TiO 2 /NH 2 -MIL-125 nanocomposite photocatalyst was synthesized for the purpose of photodegradation of Methyl Orange (MO) and Rhodamine B (RhB) dyes under visible light irradiation. The structural and chemical properties of the nanocomposite photocatalyst were characterized through FTIR, XRD, TGA, PL, XPS, ICP-OES and UV-DRS. For the photodegradation efficiency analysis, the effect of pH (3, 5, 7, 9, and 11), photocatalyst dosage (0.1, 0.2, 0.4, 0.6, and 0.8 g L -1 ), dye concentration (1-40 mg L -1 ), and contact time (10-120 min) was precisely evaluated. The largest photodegradation efficiency for RhB and MO dye models was 82.87% and 86.22%, respectively, that was obtained under optimal conditions in terms of pH and photocatalyst dosage and for Ca(30%)/TiO 2 /NH 2 -MIL-125. The photodegradation process of the dyes complied well with the first-order kinetic model. Moreover, the nanocomposite photocatalyst showed consistent photodegradation efficiency and after 6 successive cycles with fresh dye solutions, it could still perform comparably well. Taken together, Ca/TiO 2 /NH 2 -MIL-125 photocatalyst is able to show a high photodegradation efficiency for dye pollutants and optimum stability and reusability., Competing Interests: There are no conflicts to declare., (This journal is © The Royal Society of Chemistry.)