Synthesis of Ag/ZnO/BiOCl Composite Material and Its Photodegradation Performance on Ciprofloxacin

This study focuses on synthesizing a composite material of Ag/ZnO/BiOCl using Ag, ZnO, and BiOCl as raw materials. The material was prepared by loading Ag and BiOCl onto ZnO nanofilms, aiming to enhance the photocatalytic degradation of ciprofloxacin (CIP). Optimization of the photocatalytic degradation process through single-factor experiments revealed that under conditions of an initial CIP pH of 9, an Ag/ZnO/BiOCl dosage of 1 g/L, and an initial CIP concentration of 5 mg/L the conversion efficiency of CIP reached 98.79% after 150 min of exposure to a 250 W xenon lamp simulating sunlight. Furthermore, the composite material maintained a conversion efficiency of 86.17% for CIP even after five cycles of reuse, demonstrating its excellent stability. The optical properties, elemental composition, valence state, crystallinity, and morphology of the samples were analyzed using techniques such as X-ray diffraction (XRD), X-ray photoelectron spectroscopy (XPS), photoluminescence (PL), UV–visible diffuse reflectance spectroscopy (UV-vis DRS), Fourier-transform infrared spectroscopy (FTIR), and scanning electron microscopy (SEM). The results indicate that the introduction of Ag expanded the light response range of ZnO, while the addition of BiOCl improved the separation efficiency of electron–hole pairs in the composite nanomaterial. The photocatalytic mechanism was further elucidated through radical scavenging experiments, confirming that ·OH and h+ are the main active species in the degradation process.