Recyclable carbon nitride composite catalyst for degradation of tetracycline under natural light in a novel iron-free photo-Fenton system

Abstract

Fenton technology has great advantages in treating antibiotic pollution, but the generation and treatment of iron sludge has always restricted the development and application of traditional Fenton technology. In this work, an iron-free photo-Fenton (IF-PF) system with MoS2/TCNCl-S(P) as the core catalyst was established to achieve efficient degradation of antibiotics. We investigated the efficiency and stability of MoS2/TCNCl-S(P) in degrading tetracycline (TC) in IF-PF system. The cyclic mass transfer between photogenerated carrier and H2O2 in the IF-PF system was explained, and the transformation mechanism of H2O2 into strong oxidizing free radicals under the action of photogenerated carrier was revealed, and it was used for the degradation of antibiotics under natural light. The experimental results show that the efficient degradation of TC by IF-PF (MoS2/TCNCl-S(P)) system under natural light is mainly due to the abundant formation of radO2– and radOH. This finding offers a promising research direction for the photocatalytic degradation of organic pollutants in natural light conditions.