Construction of functional direct Z-scheme PCN-224@MoS2 heterojunction with high photocatalytic performance by simple solvothermal method

Organic contamination due to overuse of antibiotics and microbial contamination caused by various bacteria not only damage the ecological environment, but also threaten people's health. In this work, the photocatalytic material PCN-224@MoS2 was synthesized using a simple solvothermal method. The successfully synthesized photocatalytic material possesses a direct Z-scheme heterojunction, which effectively separated the photogenerated electrons and holes and suppressed their rapid complexation, leading to an increase in reactive oxygen species (ROS) yield. The degradation experiments showed that PCN-224@MoS2 with a mass ratio of 5:16 exhibited the best degradation ability for the tetracycline hydrochloride (TCH), achieving 96.41% degradation rate in 60 min, which was 5.4 and 4.7 times higher than that of pure PCN-224 and pure MoS2. In addition, the photocatalytic material achieved antibacterial ratios of 99.98% and 99.86% against Staphylococcus aureus (S. aureus) and Escherichia coli (E. coli), respectively, under suitable light time and concentration. Subsequently, free radical scavenging experiments and the electron-spin resonance (ESR) techniques were used to confirm the types of free radicals and the possible photocatalytic mechanism in the photocatalytic process. The development of PCN-224@MoS2 heterojunction provides a new insight to solve the environmental problems caused by organic pollutants and microbial contamination.