Mesoporous semi-ionic F-doped g-C3N4 as efficient photocatalyst for tetracycline removal under visible light

The removal of refractory contaminants such as tetracycline (TC) antibiotics from wastewater has drawn a lot of interest. Semi-ionic mesoporous F-doped g-C3N4(e.g. GCN-F0.50) photocatalysts were successfully fabricated with different doping amounts. The GCN-F0.50 shows the highest TC removal performance under visible light irradiation (lambda > 420 nm), which is 99.8% (0.0207 min(-1)) of removal in 180 min. The highest COD removal of TC was 75.9% using GCN-F0.50 photocatalyst. This is because the semi-ionic nature of the C-F bond has high polarity, which is capable of promoting good charge separation and migration. It was found that GCN-F0.50 provides a high mesoporous surface area (79.66 m(2)/g) to allow more TC pollutants to be photodegraded on the surface. In addition, the optical absorption is enhanced due to bandgap narrowing (2.55 eV). This work provides a highly efficient and good reusability photocatalyst for TC removal based on F-doped g-C3N4. (c) 2023 The Authors. Published by Elsevier B.V. This is an open access article under the CC BY license (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/).

Automated summary

The removal of refractory contaminants such as tetracycline antibiotics from wastewater has attracted significant attention. In this study, semi-ionic mesoporous F-doped g-C3N4 photocatalysts with different doping amounts were successfully fabricated. Among them, GCN-F0.50 exhibited the highest TC removal performance under visible light irradiation, achieving a removal rate of 99.8% (0.0207 min(-1)) in 180 min. Furthermore, GCN-F0.50 showed a COD removal rate of 75.9% for TC, attributed to the high polarity of the semi-ionic C-F bond.