Photocatalytic degradation of tetracycline by copper(I) oxide loaded on Daylily Stalk derived carbon material

In this work, Daylily Stalks derived N doped carbon material (N-DSC) with a high specific surface area was firstly prepared by a chemical activation method, and then cubic Cu₂O nanoparticles were combined with the prepared N-DSC to obtain N-DSC/Cu₂O composite as the catalyst for the photocatalytic degradation of tetracycline (TC) antibiotics under visible light. It is found that the obtained composite had higher photocatalytic activity than pure Cu₂O. Particularly, 25 wt% N-DSC/Cu₂O composite showed the highest photocatalytic performance with 95 % of TC degradation within 100 min and more excellent stability. Combined with various characterizations, it is confirmed that carbon bonds should be conducive to the separation of photoelectron and hole, and the carbon layer with an excellent electrical conductivity on Cu₂O can reduce the charge transfer resistance between N-DSC and Cu₂O, thereby improving the absorption of visible light and enhancing the photocatalytic activity. Moreover, it is considered that the synergistic effect of photo-generated electron pair in Cu₂O and N-DSC could promote the photodegradation efficiency of N-DSC/Cu₂O composite. In addition, the active species capture experiment confirmed that •OH and •O₂⁻ should be the main active species for TC degradation under visible light. This study is expected to provide a novel low-cost photocatalysts for pollutants removal.