Fast and lasting electron transfer between γ-FeOOH and g-C3N4/kaolinite containing N vacancies for enhanced visible-light-assisted peroxymonosulfate activation

[Display omitted] •Novel γ-FeOOH/g-C3N4/kaolinite composite was fabricated via two-step strategy.•Efficient electron transfer induced by γ-FeOOH and N vacancies promote the separation and migration of photo-generated carriers.•γ-FeOOH/g-C3N4/kaolinite catalyst possessed good bisphenol A removal efficiency.•The potential synergistic enhancement mechanism was well proposed. A novel ternary composite with the flower-like structure was synthesized by integrating of γ-FeOOH and g-C3N4/kaolinite containing N vacancies (FNGK). The FNGK-10 composite exhibited the superiority of bisphenol A (BPA) degradation in the presence of peroxymonosulfate (PMS) under the visible-light irradiation with the outstanding reusability and universal applicability, in which the degradation rate constant of FNGK-10/PMS/Vis system was about 3.25 and 8.42 times higher than that of FNGK-10/PMS and FNGK-10/Vis system, respectively. Moreover, the introduction of kaolinite leads to the accelerated consumption of PMS. The FTIR, EPR and XPS spectra proved that the formation of Fe-N and cyano (C≡N) bonds induced the enhancement of the efficiency of electron transfer. The photo-generated carriers could be trapped by N vacancies and γ-FeOOH, which was favorable for the separation potency of photoexcited charge carriers and reduction efficiency of Fe(III) to Fe(II). This paper gave a new perspective on the coupling application of PMS activation and photocatalytic technology to efficiently degrade organic contaminants.