Exploring the photocatalytic efficacy of ZnO nanostructures for simultaneous treatment of MB dye and Glucophage pharmaceuticals: experimental and theoretical investigations

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.