Amine-Functionalized Al-MOF@ SmO-ZnO: A Visible Light-Driven Nanocomposite with Excellent Photocatalytic Activity for the Photo-Degradation of Amoxicillin.

A visible light-driven amine-functionalized Al-based MOF@ SmO-ZnO nanocomposite (NH-MOF@ SmO-ZnO NCP) was synthesized as an effective photocatalyst for AMX degradation in the presence of ultrasound, in which # is MOF synthesis conditions from MOF to MOF and x and y stand for the weight percentages of SmO-to-ZnO and SmO-ZnO-to-MOF, respectively. The β-lactam antibiotic AMX, which is widely used for treating Gram-positive and Gram-negative bacterial infections in both animals and humans, was employed as a model pollutant. Using different detection techniques, the synthesized materials were characterized. Furthermore, effects of different synthesis methods, ultrasonic time, precursor concentration, sonication amplitude, and modulators on the MOFs photocatalytic behavior were taken into account. Also, catalytic dose and recycling, HO usage, and operating pH effects were investigated. Compared to the pure forms of NH-MOF-53(Al) and SmO-ZnO, the NCPs having the optimal SmO-ZnO and NH-MOF-53(Al) contents highly influenced the photocatalytic activity due to the synergetic impacts of the high charge mobility and the red shift in the NH-MOF@SmO-ZnO NCPs absorption edge compared to the SmO-ZnO nanoflowers. We used a TOC analyzer, UV/vis spectroscopy, and HPLC chromatogram to estimate the rate of AMX elimination in water over NH-MOF@SmO-ZnO NCPs as our optimal sample. In addition, after the AMX pollutant degradation, the NH-MOF@SmO-ZnO NCPs were structurally stable and maintained the majority of their photocatalytic properties even after five runs of recycling process The NH-MOF@SmO-ZnO NCPs as the superior photocatalysts were more examined and a mechanism for the AMX degradation was suggested. As a suggestion, our obtained results can be used as a starting point for the preparation of the other heterogeneous MOF-based NCPs combined with the SmO-ZnO for a variety of applications such as the environmental remediation.