Synergic effect of Cu2O/MoS2/rGO for the sonophotocatalytic degradation of tetracycline and ciprofloxacin antibiotics

Abstract A ternary Cu2O/MoS2/rGO (Cu2MG) composite, synthesized by cost-efficient and eco-friendly microwave method, is potentially used for the sonophotocatalytic (visible light and ultrasonic irradiation) degradation of antibiotics namely tetracycline and ciprofloxacin. SEM and TEM observations reveal that the spherical Cu2O nanoparticles are decorated with MoS2 and rGO layered sheets. Furthermore, the incorporation of MoS2/rGO binary composite to Cu2O nanoparticles results in the reduction in fast electron-hole recombination and improve charge carrier ability of Cu2MG composite as confirmed by PL analysis. The Cu2MG composite demonstrates the synergic sonophotocatalytic degradation of Tetracycline (20 mg/L) and Ciprofloxacin (10 mg/L) antibiotics with high efficiency of 100% and 94% within a short duration of 10 min and 75 min, respectively. The kinetics study indicates that the degradation process obeys a pseudo-first order reaction with a rate constant as Ksonophotocatalytic > Kphotocatalytic > Ksonocatalytic. The high synergic value of 3.83 and 1.71 has been achieved for the degradation of TC and CIP antibiotics, respectively. The synergic effect of degradation is owing to the spontaneous production of OH˙ and ˙O2− radicals favoring free electrons to actively participate in the degradation process. This research work proves that the as-fabricated ternary Cu2MG nanocomposite is an efficient candidate for the degradation of antibiotics for better environmental protection.