Photocatalytic Degradation of Tetracycline Hydrochloride by Rugby-like β-Ga2O3 with 3D Hierarchically Assembled Porous Structures for Environmental Remediation

A novel rugby-like β-Ga2O3 with 3D hierarchically assembled porous structures was successfully constructed through a facile precipitation-calcination method. The synthesized Ga2O3 materials were used to the photocatalytic degradation of tetracycline hydrochloride (TC·HCl) and the effects of calcination temperature on photocatalytic activity were discussed. The conversions of TC·HCl over Ga2O3-900 was 99.0% for Ga2O3-900 after 25 min UV-light irradiation, which was higher than those of commercial Ga2O3 (71.2%) and P25 (82.9%). The best photocatalytic activity of Ga2O3-900 could be attributed to the large specific surface area, intrinsic electronic properties and stable 3D hierarchically assembled porous structure. Based on the liquid chromatography quadrupole time-of-flight mass spectrometry (LC-QTOF-MS) analysis, the photocatalytic mechanism of Ga2O3 and feasible degradation pathway of TC·HCl were proposed. We believe that the present study could exploit an effective avenue to design 3D hierarchical structure porous photocatalysts to meet ever-increasing environmental remediation requirements.