Hydrothermal synthesis of rGO-Bi2WO6 heterostructure for the photocatalytic degradation of levofloxacin

Herein, we present an overt hydrothermal approach for the synthesis of rGO-Bi2WO6 heterostructures based catalyst, which were later probed with XRD, FTIR, PL, BET surface area, XPS, FE-SEM and HR-TEM for their structural, optical and morphological characteristics. The as prepared material was explored to degrade levofloxacin, an antibiotic, using visible light at room temperature. The rGO-Bi2WO6 photocatalyst under optimized parameters exhibited 74.3% degradation efficiency within 120 min. The impact of optimal parameters i.e. levofloxacin concentration, pH and photocatalyst loading was also considered. Notably, rGO-Bi2WO6 heterostructure manifested excellent photocatalytic performance in comparison to pure Bi2WO6 nanoplates for levofloxacin degradation under the same process conditions. This enhancement could be owed to reduction in recombination rates of photoexcited charge carriers in rGO-Bi2WO6 owing to the introduction of graphene, which served as an excellent charge transporter. The mechanistic study of degradation of levofloxacin proposed upon the radical trapping investigations revealed the significant contribution of electrons and holes in the photocatalytic process.