Photodeposition of Fe2O3 on CdS with high dispersion for efficient decomposing tetracycline

[Display omitted] •Highly dispersed Fe2O3 is photodeposited onto the CdS surface.•The degradation rate of tetracycline is 94.1% using Fe2O3@CdS-4 photocatalyst.•The photocatalytic mechanism follows the Z-scheme heterogeneous mechanism. Fe2O3@CdS photocatalyst has been successfully prepared by photo-deposition of Fe2O3 on the surface of CdS. The as-synthesized samples were characterized by X-ray diffraction (XRD), scanning electron microscopy (SEM) and X-ray photoelectron spectroscopy (XPS). The results revealed that the Fe2O3@CdS samples consisted of CdS and Fe2O3. The deposited amount of Fe2O3 has an remarkable influence on the photodegradation of tetracycline. The degradation rate of tetracycline was 94.1% under the optimized conditions. The enhanced photocatalytic activity is mainly due to the high dispersion of Fe2O3 deposited on the surface of CdS. The migration path of photocatalytic holes and electrons follows the Z-scheme heterogeneous junction mechanism, which is useful to improve the separation ability of photogenerated electrons-holes pairs. This work provides a new way to construct a photocatalyst with high photocatalytic performance for the photodegradation of tetracycline.