Preparation And Photocatalytic Activity Of Hydroxyapatite Supported BiOCl Nanocomposite For Oxytetracyline Removal

The study investigates photocatalytic activity of hydroxyapatite supported BiOCl (BiOCl/HA) in the presence of H2O2. BiOCl/HA was prepared by simple hydrolysis method. BiOCl/HA was characterized using scanning electron microscopy (SEM), tunneling electron microscopy (TEM), X- ray diffraction (XRD), energy diffraction X-ray (EDX), Fourier transform infrared spectroscopy (FTIR) and UV-visible (UV-vis)analysis. SEM results confirmed the dispersion of BiOCl onto hydroxyapatite. BiOCl/HA exhibited irregular pleats-like structure having average size of 80 nm. The band gap of BiOCl/HA was found to be 3.42 eV. The solar light was used as radiation source during photocatalysis. Both H2O2 and BiOCl/HA had synergistic effect on oxytetracycline removal. The simultaneous adsorption and photocatalysis (A+P) was most efficient process for OTC removal. The photocatalytic degradation of oxytetracycline obeyed pseudo first order kinetics. The effect of process parameters catalyst loading, H2O2 concentr