Biosynthesis of novel NiFe₁₂O₁₉-X (X = ZnO and TiO₂) magnetic nanophotocatalyst toward the degradation pharmaceutical ceftriaxone sodium from aqueous solution under sunlight irradiation and antibacterial activity

Since antibiotics are used in various sciences, the occurrence of antibiotics in the water environments has drawn significant concerns in recent years. In this study, novel NiFe₁₂O₁₉ coupled ZnO and TiO₂ (NiFe₁₂O₁₉-X; X = ZnO and TiO₂) were synthesized via a green route, and their photocatalytic properties were assessed. Crataegus microphylla fruit extract was used as a natural capping agent to obtain regular and homogeneous products. The as-synthesized nanocomposites were characterized by various analyzes, including TEM, EDS, DRS, FT-IR, XRD, FESEM, and VSM. The analysis confirmed that the biosynthesized nanocomposites had spherical and oval-like morphologies, with a crystallite size of about 50–70 nm, narrow bandgap, and super paramagnetic properties. Band-gap calculated using UV-DRS (2.95 eV and 3.03 eV) shows that NiFe₁₂O₁₉–ZnO and NiFe₁₂O₁₉–TiO₂ are good candidate for photocatalytic degradation. Ceftriaxone sodium (CFX) as the model contaminant was tested to assess the photocatalytic performance of the biosynthesized magnetic nanocomposite under UV and sunlight irradiations. The effect of critical parameters including nanocatalyst dose (0.08, 0.2, 0.4, and 0.6 g/L), pH (5, 7, and 10), CFX initial concentration (10, 25, 50, and 100 mg/L), and light source (UV and sunlight) were studied to achieve the optimum degradation of ceftriaxone sodium. Under optimum conditions, the biosynthesized NiFe₁₂O₁₉–ZnO and NiFe₁₂O₁₉–TiO₂ photocatalyst revealed excellent performance in the degradation of the CFX compound with an evaluated efficiency of 98.47% and 95.45% under UV irradiation, respectively. Also, the percentage of antibiotic degradation for these materials was 79.15% and 76.62%, respectively, under sunlight irradiation. Furthermore, the antibacterial characteristic features of the prepared nanocomposite against gram-positive and gram-negative bacteria were satisfactory. After careful examination of the results and diagrams, the suggested NiFe₁₂O₁₉-X (X = ZnO and TiO₂) nanocomposites might be applied in a water treatment plant to eliminate the danger of pharmaceutical waste in the aqueous medium.