The combined effectiveness of activated carbon (AC) / ZnO for the adsorption of mebeverine hydrochloride / photocatalytic degradation under sunlight

The photocatalytic degradation of the Mebeverine hydrochloride (MEB) by ZnO and the combined ZnO-Activated Carbon (ZnO-AC) under solar light has been investigated in batch mode. The AC was prepared from dates stems using ZnCl2 as chemical activation agent. The effect of some operating parameters on the MEB degradation efficiency such as: photocatalyst dose, solution pH and initial MEB concentration has been examined. The results revealed that the surface reaction on ZnO plays a crucial role in the MEB photo-degradation as confirmed by UV-Visible spectrophotometry. The photocatalytic efficiency of the mixture ZnO-AC is dependent on the mass ratio ZnO/AC, which was optimized for a value of 15 wt%. The MEB degradation kinetics follows a pseudo first order model and the Langmuir-Hinselwood (L-H) model fit adequately the experimental data. Besides, our results show that the combined system (adsorption/photocatalysis) is effective for the MEB degradation than the photocatalysis process alone. A comparative study with the literature indicated the benefits of coupling ZnO-AC under the solar light (93 mW cm−2).