V₂O₅ nanodot-decorated laminar C₃N₄ for sustainable photodegradation of amoxicillin under solar light

Abstract

Innovative solar-driven heterostructure photocatalysts are promising for removing deleterious antibiotics resi- dues in the water environment. Herein, we prepared a vanadium pentoxide/graphitic carbon nitride (V2O5/ C3N4) S-scheme with a facile approach. The heterostructure provides larger surface areas, promotes the sepa- ration and transfer of charge carriers, and offers abundant active sites for photocatalytic redox reactions. The composites were used to degrade amoxicillin (AMX) under solar light which attained a high removal efficiency (91.3%) and stability. Meanwhile, the photodegradation pathway of AMX was revealed by HPLC-MS/MS analysis and density functional theory (DFT) computations. Superoxide radicals evolved from conduction band of C3N4 and oxidative holes were generated from valence band of V2O5, which were confirmed by electron spin reso- nance experiments and selective radical quenching experiments. The V2O5/C3N4 S-scheme structure provides an internal electron channel at the interface and maintains the active sites with high potentials for photo- degradation. Our work affords a robust V2O5/C3N4 S-scheme nanocomposites for sustainable water purification.