https://doi.org/10.1140/epjp/s13360-025-06084-8
Regular Article
Exploring the photocatalytic efficacy of ZnO nanostructures for simultaneous treatment of MB dye and Glucophage pharmaceuticals: experimental and theoretical investigations
1
Department of Physics, Faculty of Science, University of Gujrat, Hafiz Hayat Campus, 50700, Gujrat, Pakistan
2
Institute of Advanced Study, College of Physics and Optoelectronic Engineering, Shenzhen University, 518060, Shenzhen, Guangdong, People’s Republic of China
3
Department of Physics, Islamia University Bahawalpur (IUB), Rahim Yar Khan Campus, Punjab, Pakistan
4
Department of Physics, University of Okara, Okara, Punjab, Pakistan
5
Department of Chemistry, College of Science, King Saud University, P.O. Box 2455, 11451, Riyadh, Saudi Arabia
6
Department of Chemistry, AN-Najah National University, P.O. Box 7, Nablus, Palestine
7
Department of Physics, National Sun Yat-Sen University, 80424, Kaohsiung, Taiwan
8
Department of Zoology, Faculty of Science, University of Gujrat, Hafiz Hayat Campus, 50700, Gujrat, Pakistan
a
tahir.awan@uog.edu.pk
b
22011710-001@uog.edu.pk
c
phuongpham@mail.nsysu.edu.tw
Received:
19
June
2024
Accepted:
3
February
2025
Published online:
6
March
2025
In this work, zinc oxide nanoparticles have been synthesized by facile co-precipitation method and characterized by various analysis techniques to study characteristic properties that are essential for photocatalytic studies. ZnO achieved average particle size of about 37 nm as confirmed by SEM and XRD JPCDS card. The UV–Visible analysis confirmed the bandgap of 3.33 eV of ZnO whereas BET analysis showed a specific surface area, pore diameter and pore volume of 8.20 m2g−1, 19.45 nm and 0.0821 cm3g−1, respectively. The synthesized nanoparticles were then used for degradation of MB dye and Glucophage pharmaceutical. By the findings of UV–Visible spectroscopy for the pollutants, it was observed that ZnO degraded MB and Glucophage up to 92.3% and 89.3%, respectively. After six cycles, it was reduced to 83.9% and 83.99% for MB and Glucophage. By COMSOL simulation, the absorbance and rate constants of incident light for Glucophage in the presence of pure ZnO were studied for the confirmation and validation of experimental findings.
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© The Author(s), under exclusive licence to Società Italiana di Fisica and Springer-Verlag GmbH Germany, part of Springer Nature 2025
Springer Nature or its licensor (e.g. a society or other partner) holds exclusive rights to this article under a publishing agreement with the author(s) or other rightsholder(s); author self-archiving of the accepted manuscript version of this article is solely governed by the terms of such publishing agreement and applicable law.
