Synthesis and characterization of ternary chitosan-TiO-ZnO over graphene for photocatalytic degradation of tetracycline from pharmaceutical wastewater.

Various nanocomposites of TiO-ZnO, TiO-ZnO/CS, and TiO-ZnO/CS-Gr with different molar ratios were synthesized by sol-gel and ultrasound-assisted methods and utilized under UV irradiation to enhance the photocatalytic degradation of tetracycline. Characterization of prepared materials were carried out by XRD, FT-IR, FE-SEM, EDX and BET techniques. The TiO-ZnO with the 1:1 molar ratio supported with 1:2 weight ratio CS-Gr (T1‒Z1/CS1‒Gr2 sample) appeared as the most effective material at the optimized operational conditions including the tetracycline concentration of 20 mg/L, pH = 4, catalyst dosage of 0.