1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25 26 27 28 29 30 31 32 33 34 35 36 37 38 39 40 41 42 43 44 45 46 47 48 49 50 51 52 53 54 55 56 57 z Catalysis ZnO Zeolite Nanocomposite for Photocatalytic Elimination of Benzophenone and Caffeine Rajesha Bedre Jagannatha, Shwetha Rani R,* and Mahesh Padaki* [a] Emerging contaminants in the aquatic environment, including pharmaceuticals and personal care products (PPCPs) are mainly resulting from the release of municipal wastewater effluents, which are detected at surface water with lower concentration, and these compounds have an impact on aquatic life. The present research investigates the preparation of zeolite supported ZnO for degradation of pharmaceuticals and person- al care products like benzophenone and caffeine. Incorporation of zeolite enhances the adsorption capacity there by results in improved degradation of PPCPs. The prepared materials were characterised by XRD, SEM, EDS, UV and ICP-OES to confirm the impregnation of ZnO in the zeolite powder, which showed 85% caffeine degradation and 78% of BP-3 degradation with an optimum catalyst load of 70 mg. Introduction Emerging contaminants like PPCPs (Pharmaceuticals and per- sonal care products) and endocrine disrupting compounds are the major contaminants present in the water. Emerging Contaminants (ECs) are present in wastewater at trace levels, but these affect the aquatic environments in addition to human health. [1] Traces of PPCPS and EDCs are detected in sewage water, aquatic environments and also in treated water at ng/L to ug/L. [2] Advanced oxidation process is one of the effective method to eliminating EDCs from wastewater effluents. [3] Zinc oxide (ZnO) is a potential photocatalyst for degradation of emerging contaminants through photocatalysis and for industrial applica- tions. [3b,4] The high surface area and nanostructured ZnO particles can enhance the photoactivity but dispersion and recovering of nanosized ZnO material at the end of the process is not easy. This problem can be overcome by modifying ZnO with inert or active material that will enhance adsorption properties as well as catalyst efficiency resulting simple recovery through filtration or deposition. [5] Impregnation of zeolites on to metal oxides is a best way to prepare hybrid catalysts, which will disperse neatly and can separate from the reaction system effectively. Nezamzadeh et al., [6] studied photocatalytic degra- dation of 4-nitrophenol using ZnO/ nano clinoptilolite zeolite under UV irradiation [7] (25-30). This literature survey indicates that that the supported ZnO is more efficient in the removal of ECs. Hence, in this study, zeolite is supported on ZnO by solid state dispersion technique, to achieve efficient decomposition of organic pollutant, zeolites are porous materials with their uniform pores and channel sizes, adsorption capacity, hydro- philic and hydrophobic properties. [5b] Here the photodegrada- tion of two PPCPs namely BP-3 (benzophenone 3) and caffeine (1, 3, 7 Trimethylxanthine) compounds have been studied, we have used zeolite A for the complete studies, and Si/ Al ratio is < 2. Results and Discussion X-ray diffraction analysis The X-ray diffraction analysis of ZnO and Zeolite supported 10% ZnO nanoparticles, and zeolite powders were conducted. XRD pattern of the same are given in Figure 1a, XRD pattern of ZnO nanostructures depicts the peaks at 2θ equal to 31.67°, 34.31°, 36.14°, 47.40°, 56.52°, 62.73°, 66.28°, 67.91° and 69.03° which is attributed to zincite with hexagonal symmetry and wurtzite structure, matches with JCPDS card no 36–1451. [8] Crystalline size of ZnO was 33 nm determined using Scherer‘s formula. Zeolite gives peaks at 9°, 19°, 24°, 27°, 30.6° and 37° are equal to 2θ, which are characteristic peaks of zeolite. [9] The XRD pattern of zeolite supported 10% ZnO shows increased intensity of peaks at 2θ equal to 15°,19°,24°,27°, 30.6°, 31.67°, 34.31° and 36.14° confirming the impregnation of ZnO on zeolite powder (10% ZnO zeolite powder). 10% of ZnO is incorporated into zeolite, low dopant concentration which may be well below the critical value of dispersion capacity for which identification of a separate crystalline phase was difficult, hence the significant peaks for ZnO is absent. However EDX results conform the incorporation of ZnO. Peaks are not very sharp due to amorphous nature of 10% ZnO imprgnation on zeolite powder. Figure 1b represents the SEM images of ZnO nanoparticles, zeolite powder, and zeolite supported 10% ZnO. Figure 1a represents the SEM image of ZnO showing irregular morphol- [a] Dr.R.B.Jagannatha,Dr.S.RaniR,Dr.M.Padaki Centre for Nano and Material Sciences, Jain University, Jain Global Cam- pus, Bangalore-562112, India E-mail: sp.mahesh@jainuniversity.ac.in r.shwetha@jainuniversity.ac.in Supporting information for this article is available on the WWW under https://doi.org/10.1002/slct.201804006 Full Papers DOI: 10.1002/slct.201804006 1989 ChemistrySelect 2019, 4,1989–1993 © 2019 Wiley-VCH Verlag GmbH & Co. KGaA, Weinheim