Construction of FEOOH/semiconductor nanosheets heterogeneous catalysts for efficient photo-Fenton degradation of tetracycline hydrochloride

Abstract The development of effective heterogeneous catalysts for refractory organic pollutants removal is highly desirable. Herein, a series of 0D/2D hybrids with FeOOH quantum dots intimately anchored on the surface of the semiconductor nanosheets were fabricated and used as photo-Fenton catalysts for tetracycline hydrochloride (TCH) degradation. The optimized FeOOH/BOBC-2 hybrids exhibited superior TCH removal efficiency than that of pure BOBC-2 and FeOOH, which was 2.14 and 2.08 times higher than BOBC-2 and FeOOH. In addition, the influential factors, including the dosage of the catalyst, initial concentration of the TCH, the amount of H2O2 and initial pH were investigated. Detailed characterizations suggest that the enhanced specific surface areas and the effective separation of the photoinduced charge carriers make great contributions to the improvement of the photo-Fenton performance. Meanwhile, the effective charge mobility could promote the conversion between Fe3+ and Fe2+, boosting the activation of H2O2. It is expected this work could provide a common strategy for the fabrication of effective catalyst for environmental remediation.