The present study demonstrates the facile synthesis of SnO 2 (tin oxide) 2D nanoflakes (2-dimensional) for sonophotocatalytic tetracycline hydrochloride (TcH) degradation. TcH is known to be widely used antibiotic, but even minute concentrations of it make the aqueous environment unsafe for living beings. As-synthesized SnO 2 was thoroughly characterized to reveal its morphology, crystal structure and other intrinsic properties. SnO 2 2D nanoflakes possessed excellent photocatalytic TcH degradation under visible light. Preliminary investigation inferred that sonophotocatalytic mode of TcH degradation was efficient over other modes with respect to degradation efficiencies for 20 mg L −1 TcH and 20 mg of SnO 2 . The optimum degradation of TcH was observed to be 88.82% in 135 min under LED (9 W, 220 V) irradiation with 30 mg of SnO 2 dosage and 40 kHz ultrasound. The degradation dynamics complied with pseudo-first-order kinetics where the kinetic rate constant (k) was 0.02 min −1 . Hence, SnO 2 2D nanoflakes were promising in mineralization of the biotoxin (TcH) in aqueous environments that accent its application to treat real-time water and wastewater.
The original version of this article unfortunately contained a mistake. The spelling of the fifth author's name was incorrect. The correct name is Afshin Maleki (A. Maleki). The original article has been corrected.
scite is a Brooklyn-based organization that helps researchers better discover and understand research articles through Smart Citations–citations that display the context of the citation and describe whether the article provides supporting or contrasting evidence. scite is used by students and researchers from around the world and is funded in part by the National Science Foundation and the National Institute on Drug Abuse of the National Institutes of Health.