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Conflict of Interest: In relation to this article, we declare that there is no conflict of interest.

Publication history: Received March 25, 2024
Accepted April 3, 2024

This is an Open-Access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution Non-Commercial License (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/bync/3.0) which permits unrestricted non-commercial use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited.

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Construction of NH 2 -MIL-101(Fe) /TiO 2 Heterojunction to Enhance the Charge Transfer in Photocatalytic Degradation of Antibiotics

Yuting Jiang Shouying Wu Hongyu Zhang Wei Wu Bolin Ji Yi Zhong^{1 2} Hong Xu Xueling Feng Bijia Wang Yimeng Ma Zhiping Mao^{1 2} Linping Zhang¹

Key Laboratory of Science & Technology of Eco-Textile, Ministry of Education, College of Chemistry and Chemical Engineering , Donghua University ¹Key Lab Bioorganic Phosphorus Chem & Chem Biol, Department of Chemistry, Ministry of Education , Tsinghua University ²National Innovation Center of Advanced Dyeing & Finishing Technology , Shandong Zhongkang Guochuang Research Institute of Advanced Dyeing & Finishing Technology Co., Ltd

Korean Journal of Chemical Engineering, June 2024, 41(7), 2039-2058(20), https://doi.org/10.1007/s11814-024-00169-3

Abstract

As an indispensable medicine, antibiotics are widely used in daily life, but following the substantial discharge of various

wastewater, which result in antibiotic resistance of microbial pathogens and jeopardizes the health of ecosystems. There is

an urgent need to tackle drug residues. After decades of intensive research, photocatalysis technology has been developed

into an effi cient technology for wastewater treatment due to its economic and environmental-friendly properties. Here, the

photocatalyst NH 2 -MIL-101(Fe)/TiO 2 composite was fabricated to degrade the antibiotics: tetracycline hydrochloride (TC),

doxycycline hydrochloride (DC), and levofl oxacin hydrochloride (LEV). The NH 2 -MIL-101(Fe)/TiO 2 photocatalysts exhibited

excellent visible light harvesting performance with a narrow band gap (2.19 eV), low recombination ratio of photoinduced

carriers, good photoelectric response, low resistance and long charging life. NH 2 -MIL-101(Fe)/TiO 2 (MT0.50 molar

ratio Fe:Ti = 1:1) showed the highest degradation eff ect, with the degradation rates of 91.52%, 80.11%, and 88.13% for TC,

DC, and LEV in 6 h, with kinetic constants of 0.00510 min −1 , 0.00344 min −1 and 0.00503 min −1 , respectively. The catalysts

exhibited signifi cantly increased photocatalytic activity and excellent stability compared to NH 2 -MIL-101 (Fe) and TiO 2 .

In addition, MT0.50 still showed good photodegradation eff ect under simulated diff erent pH and ionic strength, indicating

that MT0.50 has good adaptability and practical application. The study of photocatalytic mechanism showed that ·OH was

the main active substance in the degradation process, which played an important role in degrading antibiotics. In addition,

three possible degradation pathways for antibiotics were proposed based on the intermediates detected by LC–MS, and the

photocatalysts also showed great stability and excellent antimicrobial eff ects. Therefore, the present study provides a new

strategy and enriches the mechanisms involved in the wastewater treatment of NH 2 -MIL-101(Fe)/TiO 2 photodegradation

of various antibiotics.

Keywords

NH 2 -MIL-101(Fe) · TiO 2 · Heterojunction · Photocatalysis · Antibiotics degradation