Activated carbon modified titanium dioxide/bismuth trioxide adsorbent: One-pot synthesis, high removal efficiency of organic pollutants, and good recyclability

[Display omitted] •Activated carbon modified TiO2/Bi2O3 adsorbent was prepared by a one-pot hydrothermal method.•Low temperature calcination (280 °C) led to high surface area (188.49 m2/g) of TiO2/Bi2O3/AC.•The integrated adsorbent/photocatalyst system promoted high removal efficiency of organic pollutants.•The efficient adsorption and photo-regeneration mechanism of tetracyclines were detailed. Considerable endeavors have focused on tightly combining adsorption with photocatalysis in designing composite materials for environmental pollution treatment. Recent advances in coupling titanium dioxide/bismuth trioxide (TiO2/Bi2O3) with activated carbon (AC) show significantly enhanced photocatalytic performance but face critical limitations including low adsorption capacity and multi-step synthesis. In this work, we introduce a one-pot synthesis of activated carbon modified TiO2/Bi2O3 composite materials (TiO2/Bi2O3/AC). Thanks to the integrated adsorbent/photocatalyst system, TiO2/Bi2O3/AC shows a drastically enhanced removal efficiency for sulfamethazine (>81%), far beyond the corresponding value of the reported AC/TiO2/Bi2O3 adsorbent (98%. Furthermore, TiO2/Bi2O3/AC obtains >80% of its adsorption rate for the fifth cycle after simple photo-regeneration without any other post-treatments. Kinetic analysis and photoelectric characterization are carried out to provide insight into adsorption mechanism. Therefore, this work demonstrates a considerable potential to design and construct other multifunctional adsorbents with advanced performance.