Antibiotic pollution via wastewaters has led to many environmental problems. In this work, to remove ciprofloxacin which is an antibiotic from water, foil photocatalyst of zinc oxide nanowires doped with copper and cerium oxides was applied under UV light irradiation. An empirical model was developed to determine the photocatalyst activity using response surface methodology. The independent variables were the concentrations of precursors, copper and cerium nitrates in the coating solution. The F-value and p-value of the model showed the accuracy of the model. The statistical analysis indicated that copper oxide had larger effect on the response than cerium oxide. The optimized catalyst was determined and characterized using ICP, XRD, SEM, and MIP techniques. The results of this work which are comparable to those of the previous studies have the advantage of easy separation of the photocatalyst from water without using a centrifuge.
