Fabrication of highly porous ZnO/Ag2O nanoparticles embedded in N-doped graphitic carbon for photocatalytic degradation of tetracycline

In the present study, we have successfully fabricated ZnO/Ag2O nanoparticles embedded in nitrogen doped carbon based nanocomposites (ZnO/Ag2O-NDC). The fabricated nanocomposites were characterized by several analytical techniques. The photocatalytic performance was inspected by the degradation of tetracycline (TC) under visible light. The fabricated nanocomposites show excellent photocatalytic degradation performance, which can degrade approximately 90.7% of TC within 60 min at nearly neutral pH 7, and the degradation rate constant was found to be 0.0083 min−1. Moreover, the optimal composite exhibited excellent stability, indicating its suitability for reuse. Reasonable pathways of antibiotic degradation were proposed based on the detected intermediates during the degradation, where the •OH and O2•- played a dominant role. It was also noticed that the N-doped graphitic carbon acts as the framework and promotes the electron transfer, and the ZnO acts as an effective photocatalyst while Ag2O as an electron trapping agent to enhance the visible light activity.