Surface and interface engineering of Z-scheme 1D/2D imprinted CoZn-LDH/C3N4 nanorods for boosting selective visible-light photocatalytic activity

• A new type of CoZn-LDH/C 3 N 4 imprinted photocatalyst was synthesized. • Surface imprinted layer attributed to highly selective recognition of tetracycline (TC). • Degradation of TC under visible-light was achieved in interfering coexisting systems. • Photodegradation pathway and mechanism of TC were elucidated. Recently, the emergence of more and more coexisting organic contaminants aggravates the difficulty of water treatment and poses a threat to public health. Molecularly imprinted photocatalysts allow a highly selective removal of target active compounds, rendering wide applications in complex environmental treatment. However, the synergistic recognition and degradation performance is usually restricted by the intrinsic structural characteristics of traditional photocatalysts and the affinity barrier between semiconductor substrate and organic imprinted layer. Herein, we synthesized Z-scheme molecularly imprinted photocatalysts with CoZn-LDH heterostructure supported by porous C 3 N 4 nanorods (MIP-CoZn-LDH@C 3 N 4 ). Due to the excellent light capture and high active cavities, the photodegradation rate of MIP-CoZn-LDH@C 3 N 4 to tetracycline (TC) target could reach 79.8% under visible light within 60 min. Noticeably, the material possessed outstanding ability of selective recognition and photodegradation of TC in coexisting interference solution (k imprinted was 2.18 to ciprofloxacin and 2.33 to cephalothin, respectively). The mode of selective photodegradation and pathways were systematically discussed based on the deep evaluation of the mechanism experiments. Our study opens a new insight into the design of photocatalyst with selective degradation performance for the requirements of practical environmental applications.