Visible light driven photocatalytic degradation of aqueous acetamiprid over nitrogen and graphene oxide doped ZnO composites

The present investigation focused on the photocatalytic degradation of acetamiprid in aqueous solutions under visible light over bare ZnO as well as N- and N-GO-doped photocatalysts. The synthesised materials were characterised using SEM, TEM, XRD, nitrogen sorption, photoluminescence, UV-Vis, FTIR and electrochemical impedance spectroscopy techniques. The obtained results pointed out the high photocatalytic performances of the N-GO-ZnO allowing complete degradation of the acetamiprid after 5 hours of reaction at ambient temperature. Under otherwise the same operating conditions, 12, 38 and 68% conversion were reached in the absence of any photocatalyst, over the bare ZnO and N-doped ZnO materials, respectively.