Enhanced Tetracycline Hydrochloride Degradation at Near Neutral Conditions with Feox Modified Bi4tao8cl Catalyst: Coupling the Photocatalytic and Fenton Oxidation

The efficient regeneration of Fe2+ active sites in heterogeneous catalysts is of great significance for the photo-Fenton progress. Herein, amorphous FeOx as one efficient cocatalyst was anchored on the Bi4TaO8Cl nanosheets to boost the activation of H2O2 and the separation of photogenerated carriers. The surface-exposed FeOx can produce Fe2+ active sites by extracting the photogenerated electrons from Bi4TaO8Cl. As a result, the redox cycle of Fe3+/Fe2+ was built and the carriers were separated to boost the continuous photo-Fenton degradation. As a result, H2O2 are continuously activated through the cycle of Fe3+/Fe2+. The coupling of photocatalysis and the Fenton reaction enhances the TC-H degradation performance and suppress the loss-activation of iron sites. The optimized FeOx/Bi4TaO8Cl sample exhibited the highest degradation ratio of about 83.5 % in 20 min, which was nearly 4 times that of the pure Bi4TaO8Cl. In addition, the better performance of FeOx/Bi4TaO8Cl catalyst under near-neutral conditions also sheds new insights about the design of efficient photo-Fenton catalysts that can work under mild conditions.