One-step hydrothermal synthesis of g-C₃N₄/TiO₂/BiOBr layered hybrid photocatalyst with enhanced visible light degradation of tetracycline

College of Environmental Science and Engineering, Qilu University of Technology (Shandong Academy of Sciences), Jinan, 250353, P. R. China

Abstract

In this work, a ternary composite photocatalyst with layer structure was synthesized by a one-step hydrothermal method. The visible-light-driven layered ternary photocatalyst exhibited excellent photocatalytic performance for the degradation of tetracycline (TC). The degradation rate of TC reached 88.78% within 60 min under visible light exposure in presence of optimum ratio G-T-B-0.2, which is higher than pure g-C₃N₄, TiO₂ and BiOBr. Scaning electron microscope (SEM), Transmission electron microscope (TEM), Xray diffractometer (XRD), Fourier transform infrared spectra (FTIR), spectrometer and X-ray photoelectron spectroscopy (XPS) were used to character the physicochemical properties of the synthesized samples. Photoelectrochemical measurements and radical trapping experiments revealed that the improvement of photocatalytic performance was mainly attributed to the rapid charge transfer at the interface of gC₃N₄/TiO₂/BiOBr, which was benefit to the separation of photogenerated carriers and visible light absorption. This work provides a facile method for the synthesis of ternary heterojunctions, which has potential applications in environmental remediation.