In-situ growth UiO-66 on Bi2O3 to fabrication p-p heterojunction with enhanced visible-light degradation of tetracycline

A p-p heterostructure has been constructed through loading UiO-66 on Bi2O3 as a composite photocatalyst to degrade the antibiotic tetracycline (TC) under visible light. The Bi2O3@UiO-66 composites were characterized by XRD, SEM, UV, BET, PL and FTIR. The formed p-p heterojunction improves the separation efficiency of electrons and holes, which caused the degradation rate constant of the composite photocatalyst for TC reaching 0.0492 min-1. The UiO-66 is added to improve the TC adsorption capacity and photocatalytic stability of the composite photocatalyst, so that the composite photocatalyst can have a photodegradation effect on TC under different anion and cation environments or a strong acid-base solution environment with the pH value of 1~13. The photoelectrochemical analyses is the evidence of the fast transfer of electron and hole pairs with inhibiting recombination.