Photocatalytic degradation of cefoxitin sodium antibiotic using novel BN/CdAl2O4 composite

The presence of the antibiotics in wastewater and drinking water is of growing concern worldwide, thereby an advanced sustainable technology needs to be developed to decontaminate the antibiotics from water resources. Herein, a series of novel boron nitrile/cadmium aluminate (BN/CdAl2O4) composites photocatalysts were synthesized by using hydrothermal methodology. Thus synthesized BN/CdAl2O4 composites were tested for the photocatalytic degradation of cefoxitin sodium (CFT) antibiotic in aqueous solution. The spectroscopic analysis confirmed that the morphology, N2 adsorption-desorption, and optical properties of the composites changes as the amount of the BN varies in BN/CdAl2O4 composite. The resulting BN/CdAl2O4 composite with a fraction of 0.2 g BN showed most efficient photocatalytic properties than the pure BN, CdAl2O4 and other BN/CdAl2O4 composites owing to its better light-harvesting properties, higher surface area, and better charge separation properties. The results revealed that the solution pH, irradiation times, and initial CFT concentration in solution controls the photocatalytic process and almost 100% CFT degradation was observed at 15 mg/L concentration within 240 min at pH 7. The results of free radicals scavenging experiments demonstrated that both positive hole and •OH free radical play dominant roles in CFT degradation. The kinetic modeling of CFT photocatalysis process showed better fitting with the first-order kinetic model as compared to the zero-order and second-order kinetic models. This study revealed that BN-0.2/CdAl2O4 composite has better CFT degradation efficiency and excellent recyclability.