Cu3P nanoparticles decorated hollow tubular carbon nitride as a superior photocatalyst for photodegradation of tetracycline under visible light

The construction of stable, efficient and economical visible-light-driven photocatalyst is a practical strategy to deal with antibiotic water contamination. Herein, Cu3P nanoparticles/hollow tubular carbon nitride (HTCN) composite was successfully prepared and the photocatalytic activity of Cu3P/HTCN was evaluated with tetracycline (TC) as the degradation target antibiotic. Among them, the 6% Cu3P/HTCN exhibited optimal photocatalytic degradation rate (96.9% in 40 min), which was 8.3 times higher than that of pure HTCN. The enhancement of photocatalytic performance by Cu3P/HTCN is attributed to the introduction of Cu3P nanoparticles can not only increase the specific surface area of HTCN to provide abundant reaction sites, but also enhance the capture ability of incident light and promote the high-speed separation and transfer of photogenerated charges. In addition, the electron spin resonance (ESR) technology was used to further confirm that the main active species during the photocatalytic degradation of TC. Furthermore, the possible intermediates in photocatalytic degradation of TC by Cu3P/HTCN was the identified with liquid chromatography-mass spectrometry (LC-MS). This work provides an effective way for constructing HTCN-based composite materials for photocatalytic application.