MIL-101(Fe) nanodot-induced improvement of adsorption and photocatalytic activity of carbon fiber/TiO2-based weavable photocatalyst for removing pharmaceutical pollutants

Abstract The decoration of TiO2-based junctions on carbon fibers (CFs) has been well-developed as weavable photocatalysts for degrading hazardous pharmaceutical pollutants, but their practical application is still constrained by unsatisfactory adsorption and photodegradation performances, resulting from low surface area/porosity and photoactivity. Herein, we propose the growth of MIL-101(Fe) nanodots with small size of 5–10 nm as a porous co-photocatalyst to decorate TiO2 nanorods on CFs. CFs/TiO2/MIL-101(Fe) bundles display a wide absorption with an edge (∼600 nm). Subsequently, CFs/TiO2/MIL-101(Fe) bundles are weaved into a macroscopical cloth (0.2 g, 4 × 4 cm2). CFs/TiO2/MIL-101(Fe) cloth can efficiently adsorb 46.9% 17β-estradiol (E2) and 40.2% tetracycline hydrochloride (TC) after 60 min in the dark, with obvious improvement (5.4–8.4 times) compared with that by CFs/TiO2 cloth (8.7% E2 and 4.8% TC). Importantly, under visible light irradiation, CFs/TiO2/MIL-101(Fe) cloth can remove 87.4% E2 and 94.2% TC in 60 min, which is 6–13.1 times compared with that by CFs/TiO2 cloth (14.6% E2 and 7.2% TC), resulting from the high adsorption and three-component synergistic photocatalytic activity. Therefore, the construction of semiconductor-MOF nanojunctions on CFs provides a general strategy to develop novel weavable photocatalysts for eliminating pharmaceutical pollutants.