Fabrication of g-C3N4/BiOBr heterojunctions on carbon fibers as weaveable photocatalyst for degrading tetracycline hydrochloride under visible light

The photocatalytic degradation of tetracycline (TC) in water has received much attention, but its practical application in the river has been limited by a lack of efficient and recyclable visible-light-driven photocatalysts. To solve this problem, with flexible carbon fiber (CF) bundles as substrate, we have reported the in-situ growth of g-C3N4/BiOBr heterojunctions as weaveable photocatalyst. g-C3N4 nanosheets (thickness: similar to 30 nm, diameter: 0.4-1 mu m) and BiOBr layer (thickness: similar to 25 nm, diameter: 200-500 nm) were grown on CFs successively. CFs/g-C3N4/BiOBr bundles could be woven into cloth (area: 5 x 5 cm(2), weight: 0.15 g), and the cloth exhibited remarkably enhanced photodegradation efficiency (86.1%) for degrading TC-HCl in 120 min. In addition, h(+), O-center dot(2)- and (OH)-O-center dot were demonstrated as the reactive species contributing to the elimination of TC-HCl. Especially, two possible pathways of degrading TC-HCl were proposed based on the intermediate products. Thus, CFs/g-C3N4/BiOBr could serve as a flexible, weaveable and recyclable photocatalyst for antibiotic elimination in an aqueous environment.