A novel Ag2O/Bi2WO6 composite with enhanced piezocatalytic performance for ciprofloxacin removal

Bi2WO6, an important semiconductor material, has been widely used in the catalytic degradation of organic wastewater in recent years. However, Bi2WO6 owns the low band gap energy, the recombination of the produced e−-h+ pairs expected to be fast, which leads to undesirable degradation effects. In order to improve its piezocatalytic ability, this paper combined the semiconductor material Bi2WO6 with Ag2O to form Ag2O/Bi2WO6 piezoelectric catalysts, which was characterized and its removal effect on ciprofloxacin (CIP) was discussed. According to the analyses, the reaction rate constant for the piezocatalytic removal of CIP in the company of 5 % composite ratio of Ag2O/Bi2WO6 was about 1.40 and 4.87 times higher than it was when Bi2WO6 and piezocatalytic technology were used alone. By exploring the experimental principle, the increased piezocatalytic activity of Ag2O/Bi2WO6 was found to be due to the creation of Z-scheme heterojunction, which could efficiently separate the e−-h+ pairs. Reuse experiments were also carried out, and the results showed that it has good reusability and stability in piezocatalysis. In summary, Ag2O/Bi2WO6 has good piezocatalytic activity for the removal of CIP.