Bi2WO6/NH2-MIL-88B(Fe) heterostructure: An efficient sunlight driven photocatalyst for the degradation of antibiotic tetracycline in aqueous medium

Abstract The development of highly efficient sunlight assisted photocatalysts has been acknowledged as a promising strategy for the enhanced degradation of antibiotics. In this work, effectual fabrication of a novel Bi2WO6/NH2-MIL-88B(Fe) heterostructure was carried through solvothermal route. The structural, morphological and compositional analysis was done by employing number of analytical techniques, namely XRD, FTIR, HRTEM, FESEM, XPS, PL and BET surface area. The prepared Bi2WO6/NH2-MIL-88B(Fe) heterostructure was utilized as an efficient photocatalyst towards decomposition of a typical antibiotic tetracycline (TC) in aqueous medium. It was found that Bi2WO6/NH2-MIL-88B(Fe) heterostructure exhibited improved degradation efficiency of about 89.4% within 130 min of solar illumination than pristine NH2-MIL-88B(Fe) under optimized parameters i.e. initial drug solution of 10 mg/L concentration at pH 4 with 0.35 g/L dose of catalyst. Moreover, adsorption studies, kinetics and isotherms of adsorption on TC were also investigated. Results revealed that adsorption kinetics followed pseudo 2nd order model and isotherm data fitted well with Freundlich model (R2 = 0.99803) as compared to Temkin and Langmuir. The ameliorating photocatalytic capability could be primarily accredited to the heterojunction created among Bi2WO6 and NH2-MIL-88B(Fe) which facilitated the charge transfer and thus determines high catalytic efficiency. The enhanced photocatalyic effect was further verified by electrochemical impedance and photocurrent studies. The prepared composite also exhibited longer carrier lifetime (140.72 ns) compared to pure MOF (132.05 ns) and Bi2WO6 (136.39 ns). Further, based on the radical trapping investigations, role of superoxide radicals was dominant and detailed mechanism was proposed for the photocatalytic degradation process. The major intermediates formed during the course of reaction were also examined using LCMS analysis. The photodegradation was also carried over simulated hospital wastewater by the prepared heterostructure and 60.5% TOC was obtained under solar light in 390 min. Moreover, the synthesized heterostructure showed good recyclability up to three cycles depicting good stability.