Photocatalytic Degradation of Levonorgestrel by Sprayed ZnO Thin Films

Pure and Ni doped zinc oxide (ZnO) thin films were deposited by ultrasonic spray pyrolysis. The precursor used for the pure ZnO thin film was previously grinded and the doped film was doped 3<sup xmlns:mml="http://www.w3.org/1998/Math/MathML" xmlns:xlink="http://www.w3.org/1999/xlink">%</sup>at. FTIR of both samples confirms the presence of Zn-O stretching vibrational modes that corroborate the presence of ZnO. XRD characterization confirms the presence of wurtzite zinc with a preferential orientation of (002) and (004) for the pure and doped ZnO thin films, respectively. SEM images show similar structures in both samples with mean lengths ~ 305.3 and 229.8 nm for the pure and doped ZnO, respectively. The photocatalytic performance of the samples was tested against a 3 ppm levonorgestrel solution under UV-C light irradiation (254 nm). After 120 min of irradiation, the degradation percentage obtained was 76.7% and 81.3% for the pure and doped ZnO thin films, respectively.