Fabrication of ternary nano-heterojunction via hierarchical deposition of a-Fe2O3 and b-La2S3 on cubic CoCr2O4 for enhanced photodegradation of doxycycline

The current study offers the design of a novel photocatalyst for the effective removal of pharmaceuticalswherein the heterojunction was constructed with the objective of capturing maximum solar spectrumand to ensure effective separation of photogenerated charge carriers. The nano-heterojunction was fabricatedthrough ultrasonication-assisted co-precipitation method by the hierarchical deposition of a-Fe2O3 and b-La2S3 on cubic CoCr2O4 spinel. The fabricated nanomaterials were extensively characterizedby using XRD, Raman, FTIR, XPS, SEM, TEM, EDAX, PL, EIS, BET, and DRS. The photoluminescence and EISanalysis revealed the mitigated charge carrier recombination in CoCr2O4/a-Fe2O3/b-La2S3 (CFL) thatresulted in superior photodegradation of doxycycline (DOX) (92.83 %) under visible light irradiation. Mineralization percentage of 92.5 % was affirmed by TOC analysis. Further, the influence of pH, ions, concentrationof DOX and CFL dosage on the photodegradation process was studied. The active participationof the reactive species involved in the reaction were identified by scavenging assay and ESR. Finally, apossible photocatalytic mechanism of CFL for the degradation of DOX with underlying pathway is proposedwith the help of GC–MS/MS analysis. The study highlights the great promise of CFL photocatalystas well as the potential of n-n-p heterojunction for appliances in the photodegradation of organicpollutants. KCI Citation Count: 0