In suit constructing S-scheme FeOOH/MgIn2S4 heterojunction with boosted interfacial charge separation and redox activity for efficiently eliminating antibiotic pollutant

Photocatalytic elimination of antibiotic pollutant is an appealing avenue in response to the water contamination, but it still suffers from sluggish charge detachment, limited redox capacity as well as poor visible light utilization. Herein, a particular S-scheme FeOOH/MgIn2S4 heterojunction with wide visible light absorption was triumphantly constructed by in-situ growth of MgIn2S4 nanoparticles onto the surface of FeOOH nanorods, and employed as a high-efficiency visible light driven photocatalyst for removing tetracycline (TC). Conspicuously, the as-obtained FeOOH(15 wt%)/MgIn2S4 elucidated the optimal TC removal rate of 0.01258 min(-1) after 100 min of visible light illumination, which was almost 33.1 and 6.6 times larger than those of neat FeOOH and MgIn2S4, separately. The exceptional degradation performance was principally put down to the establishment of S-scheme heterojunction between FeOOH and MgIn2S4, which could not merely accelerate the detachment of photogenerated carriers, but also retain the powerful reducing ability of photoinduced electrons for MgIn2S4 and high oxidizing capacity of photoexcited holes for FeOOH, strongly driving the generation of plentiful active species including holes, superoxide and hydroxyl radicals. Additionally, the possible degradation mechanism and pathways of TC were also speculated. This work offers a valuable perspective for constructing high-efficiency S scheme heterojunction photocatalysts for eradicating antibiotics.

Automated summary

In this study, a unique S-scheme FeOOH/MgIn2S4 heterojunction photocatalyst with wide visible light absorption was successfully constructed and demonstrated high efficiency in visible light driven degradation of antibiotics.