<p>Dyes and antibiotics in the industrial wastewater are difficult to degrade by conventional biological processes. In this study, high entropy spinel ferrite oxide catalyst Cu_1/2Zn_1/2Fe_2/3Co_2/3Ni_2/3O₄ (HEO-CZFCN) was prepared by the solution combustion technique and its photocatalytic degradation performance was evaluated under simulated visible light. The HEO-CZFCN demonstrated significantly improved photocatalytic performance compared with single component catalyst. In addition, the HEO-CZFCN also exhibited excellent selective photocatalytic effect on dyes, and the residual amount of methylene blue (MB) could be greatly reduced to 3.25% after the visible light irradiation for 7h. In addition, this catalyst also showed good photocatalytic activity toward antibiotics,&#xa0;with degradation rates of 65.6% for tetracycline (TC) and 81.0% for cefixime after 6h of visible light irradiation, respectively. The HEO-CZFCN enhanced the photocatalytic performance due to a variety of synergistic interactions such as high entropy effect, lower fermi energy level and abundant oxygen vacancies induced by the valence change of metal ions. Moreover, the mechanism of MB degradation was also investigated, and MB was photo-decomposed as intermediates including phenols, heterocycles, ketones, aromatic esters, which were then degraded to small molecule compounds such as water and carbon dioxide. Our findings obtained in this study demonstrate that the high entropy strategy is an effective strategy to promote the photocatalytic degradation of dyes and antibiotics in the wastewater.</p> Graphical Abstract <p>The high entropy spinel ferrite photocatalyst Cu_0.5Zn_0.5Fe_2/3Co_2/3Ni_2/3O₄, prepared by the combustion method, exhibits greatly improved photocatalytic degradation performance and the mechanism of methylene blue degradation was studied.</p> <p></p>