Photoactive aurivillius oxide integrated porous polymer monoliths as renewable visible light catalyst for decontaminating persistent organic pollutants

This article uses a mesoporous organic polymer monolithic template embedded with nanosheets of aurivillius oxide, i.e., Bi 2 MoO 6 (BMO), as a visible light harvesting photocatalyst, for the photocatalytic dissipating for persistent organic pollutants. FE-SEM, EDAX, HR-TEM, SAED, p-XRD, UV–Vis-DRS, FT-IR, PLS, BET/BJH, and XPS analysis were performed to characterize the structural and surface morphological features of the new-age photocatalyst. The unique properties of BMO nanocomposite and a specific quantity (0.75 g) of its integration onto a translucent polymer monolith bring an innovative approach to heterogeneous photocatalysis, with photocatalytic properties far superior and more efficient than non-benign conventional methodologies. The impact of physicochemical parameters such as solution pH, photocatalyst amount, light intensity, pollutant concentration, and oxidizer dosage was evaluated to optimize the process efficacy. The BMO-0.75 dispersed polymer monolith offers superior visible light absorption and voluminous photoactive sites for the dissipation of Reactive Brown-10 (RB-10; ≥ 99.4%) and ciprofloxacin (CIP; ≥ 98.7%) at an optimized solution pH (1.0 and 6.0), photocatalyst dosage (50 and 40 mg), and photoadditives (1.0 mM KBrO 3 and 1.0 mM H 2 O 2 ), for RB-10 (15 ppm) and CIP (20 ppm), respectively, in ≤ 0.3 h of irradiation, using 300 W/cm 2 tungsten lamp. The photocatalyst is reusable for several cycles without loss in efficiency and is efficient in decontaminating persistent organic pollutants at an affordable cost and time. Graphical abstract