AUTHOR=Song Jiahe , Zhao Kun , Yin Xiangbin , Liu Ying , Khan Iltaf , Liu Shu-Yuan 

TITLE=Photocatalytic degradation of tetracycline hydrochloride with g-C3N4/Ag/AgBr composites

JOURNAL=Frontiers in Chemistry

VOLUME=10

YEAR=2022

URL=https://www.frontiersin.org/journals/chemistry/articles/10.3389/fchem.2022.1069816

DOI=10.3389/fchem.2022.1069816

ISSN=2296-2646

ABSTRACT=<p>Graphite carbon nitride (g-C<sub>3</sub>N<sub>4</sub>), as a polymer semiconductor photocatalyst, is widely used in the treatment of photocatalytic environmental pollution. In this work, a Z-scheme g-C<sub>3</sub>N<sub>4</sub>/Ag/AgBr heterojunction photocatalyst was prepared based on the preparation of a g-C<sub>3</sub>N<sub>4</sub>-based heterojunction <italic>via in-situ</italic> loading through photoreduction method. The g-C<sub>3</sub>N<sub>4</sub>/Ag/AgBr composite showed an excellent photocatalytic performance in the degradation of tetracycline hydrochloride pollutants. Among the prepared samples, g-C<sub>3</sub>N<sub>4</sub>/Ag/AgBr-8% showed the best photocatalytic ability for the degradation of tetracycline hydrochloride, whose photocatalytic degradation kinetic constant was 0.02764 min<sup>−1</sup>, which was 9.8 times that of g-C<sub>3</sub>N<sub>4</sub>, 2.4 times that of AgBr, and 1.9 times that of Ag/AgBr. In the photocatalytic process, <sup>•</sup>O<sup>2–</sup> and <sup>•</sup>OH are main active oxygen species involved in the degradation of organic pollutants. The photocatalytic mechanism of g-C<sub>3</sub>N<sub>4</sub>/Ag/AgBr is mainly through the formation of Z-scheme heterojunctions, which not only effectively improves the separation efficiency of photogenerated electron-hole pairs, but also maintains the oxidation and reduction capability of AgBr and g-C<sub>3</sub>N<sub>4</sub>, respectively.</p>