A novel poly(triazine imide) hollow tube/ZnO heterojunction for tetracycline hydrochloride degradation under visible light irradiation

Abstract A novel poly(triazine imide) hollow tube (PTI)/ZnO heterojunction was prepared by a molten salts method. The photocatalyst was characterized by X-ray diffraction (XRD), scanning electron microscopy (SEM), transmission electron microscopy (TEM), UV–vis diffuse reflectance spectroscopy (DRS) and photoluminescence (PL) spectroscopy, respectively. The results showed the ZnO nanoparticles were successfully coupled into the PTI hollow tube to form PTI/ZnO heterojunction. The degradation of tetracycline hydrochloride (TC) under visible light irradiation was used to evaluate the activity of photocatalyst. The PTI/ZnO-6 wt% heterojunction exhibits the highest photocatalytic activity, which can degrade almost all TC within 90 min. The kinetic constant of degradation reaction with PTI/ZnO-6 wt% heterojunction (0.034 min −1 ) is about 5 times as high as that of the PTI (0.0070 min −1 ). A possible photocatalytic mechanism for heterojunction according to the energy-band theory was proposed.