Adsorption promoted visible-light-induced photocatalytic degradation of antibiotic tetracycline by tin oxide/cerium oxide nanocomposite

Abstract Increasing environmental concerns related to the use of antibiotics and organic dyes has resulted in a serious demand for effective methods to remove these compounds from industrial wastewater. To address this issue, there remains a need for advanced semiconductor photocatalysts with cost-effectiveness and better performance. Tuned properties (optical and surface) were achieved for the fabricated tin oxide/cerium oxide nanostructured photocatalysts and used for visible-light-induced photocatalytic degradation of antibiotic and dyes for wastewater decontamination. The visible-light-induced degradation performance of tin oxide/cerium oxides was tested in aqueous solution using the antibiotic tetracycline hydrochloride (TC) as a model pollutant. The best result among the studied photocatalysts showed the TC removal efficiency of ~97% in 120 min under visible-light irradiation with more than 50% of adsorption of TC. Furthermore, the photocatalytic activity was also tested towards organic dyes (Methylene blue; MB and Congo red; CR) and exhibited excellent performance for the degradation of both the dyes with the degradation efficiency of around ~90 and ~97% for CR and MB, respectively. Moreover, the photocatalyst also showed the stability towards the degradation of a pollutant, thus can be also explored for other emerging pollutants.