Synergistic effect from integrated palm oil biomass biochar enhanced nanoplate bismuth oxybromide for fluoroquinolone photodegradation under xenon light irradiation

Researchers have explored promising approaches to address the antibiotic-contaminated water using low-cost biochar-based composites with enhanced photocatalytic activity. They prepared biochar from oil palm waste and combined it with BiOBr to form BiOBr/OPBC composites for ciprofloxacin degradation. The analysis confirmed the successful integration of high-purity, high-surface-area BiOBr with the oil palm empty fruit bunches (OPEFB) at a 1:0.5 ratio. The incorporation of OPBC has significantly improved the performance under visible light for the removal of ciprofloxacin by surpassing that of both pristine BiOBr and OPEFB. Optimized BiOBr/OPBC has achieved a threefold higher photodegradation rate for ciprofloxacin than pure BiOBr. The degradation by optimized composite was observed by the kinetic model of Langmuir–Hinshelwood which quantifies a rate constant, k of 0.0126 min⁻¹. These findings pave the way to investigate the optimizing photocatalysts using biochar from various biomass sources for efficient antibiotic pollutant removal.