Bio-synthesis and Photocatalytic Activity of Zinc Oxide Nanoparticles for Sulfosulfuron Herbicide Degradation from Aqueous Solutions

In this study, zinc oxide (ZnO) nanoparticle was fabricated using the extract of Olive leaves (referred as ZnO NPs), using the green synthesis process, and then explores its ability for photodegradation of different concentrations of sulfosulfuron herbicide (10, 20, 40, and 80) mg/L under visible light in batch mode system at pH of 6.8 and one g/L of ZnO NPs. Morphological and structural properties of the synthesized ZnO NPs have been characterized using X-ray diffraction (XRD), fourier transform infrared (FTIR), brunauer Emmett Teller (BET), vibrating sample-magnetometer (VSM), transmission electron microscope (TEM), scanning electron microscopy (SEM). The finding confirms that the maximum removal efficacy reached 82.08% under optimum conditions of 10 mg/L of sulfosulfuron Herbicide concentration, and 90 min. In addition, the reaction followed a first-order kinetics model with R2 ˃ 96. The study also showed that ZnO NPs could be used as a catalyst for four cycles of photocatalytic oxidation of organic contaminants before losing its effectiveness. According to the finding of this study, ZnO NPs has an acceptable efficiency in the elimination of herbicide, as their relatively simple synthesis, could be a suitable catalyst for the degradation and elimination of pharmaceutical residues.