Efficient photoelectrocatalytic degradation of tylosin on TiO2 nanotube arrays with tunable phosphorus dopants

Abstract Photoelectrocatalytic (PEC) degradation of antibiotics residues is one of the most effective strategies for wastewater treatment. TiO2 has been widely used as an efficient photoelectrode material for pollutant removal. However, the degradation efficiency of UV light-driven TiO2-based photoelectrodes is still low. In this study, phosphorus-doped TiO2 nanotube arrays (TNTAs/P) were fabricated by calcination TNTAs with amorphous red phosphorus in sealed ampoules. By tuning the amount of P dopants, the optimized TNTAs/P(0.75) photoelectrode exhibits excellent PEC degradation performance under the Xenon lamp (100 mW/cm2, λ > 300 nm) light irradiation, with 79% tylosin removal within 250 min.. The TNTAs/P(0.75) photoelectrode also displays about 4-fold photocurrent enhancement than bare TNTAs. It is suggested that the P-doping treatment could improve the light-harvesting ability and accelerate the separation efficiency of photo-induced electron-hole pairs in TNTAs, which benefits the production of •OH radicals and thus leads to the enhancement in tylosin degradation activity. This present work demonstrates a facile approach for improving the PEC degradation efficiency by doping heteroatoms in the photoelectrode. Capsule: P-doped TiO2 nanotube arrays were fabricated for boosting photoelectrocatalytic tylosin degradation activity due to the enhanced light absorption and charge transfer efficiency.