Sustainable manufacturing of a drug degrading material utilizing green energy

Abstract

Abstract Red mud (RM) also known as Bauxite residue is a semi-solid waste generated in the Bayer process which is calcined at 200ºC to make it porous and to remove excess moisture and volatile components. RM before and after calcination is characterized by X-Ray Diffraction, FTIR, UVDRS methods here. The peaks for hematite (α-Fe2O3) are clearly identified in XRD as well as FTIR (590 cm−1 and 480 cm−1 for Fe-O stretching band) which shows a remarkable enhance from RM to RM-200 and proves to be helpful in degradation of norfloxacin. Activated red mud exhibited a good percentage of degradation of 60 ppm norfloxacin molecule (nearly 88%) compared to raw RM (66%) at neutral pH under visible light irradiation. The scavenging experiment confirms hydroxyl (OH·) and superoxide (O2–.) are found to be the dominant radicals for the degradation of norfloxacin by the photocatalytic process. The material proved its stability after 4 consecutive cycles showing the percentage of degradation dropping marginally∼79%.