Biochar-Modified BiOBr Photocatalyst for Enhanced Visible-Light-Driven Degradation of Antibiotics
摘要
In this study, peanut shell–derived biochar was employed as the adsorption site and electron transfer bridge in a ZC/BiOBr photocatalytic composite system. The effects of the mixed hydrothermal method and the in-situ hydrothermal method on the structure and performance of ZC/BiOBr composite photocatalysts were systematically investigated. The results indicated that the mixed hydrothermal method, which better preserves the intrinsic structures of both biochar and BiOBr simultaneously, exhibited more excellent performance in the adsorption-photocatalytic degradation system. Among the prepared samples, 40ZC-BiOBr prepared with 40% biochar loading exhibited a narrower band gap, enhanced visible-light absorption, and significantly improved separation efficiency of photogenerated charge carriers. Under visible-light irradiation for 3 h, 40ZC-BiOBr achieved a sulfanilamide (SN) removal efficiency of 98.5%, representing an improvement of 68.5% compared with pure BiOBr. The degradation efficiencies for rhodamine B (RhB), methyl orange (MO), methylene blue (MB), and malachite green (MG) were 90%, 85%, 100%, and 100%, respectively. Moreover, 40ZC-BiOBr exhibited higher degradation capacity for mixed dye wastewater than for single-component dyes. Active species trapping experiments demonstrated that •O₂⁻ and h⁺ played dominant roles in the photocatalytic degradation of SN.