UiO-66 acted as the electron-energy platform to assist construction of cascade Z-scheme heterojunction boosting directed charge transfer

In this study, U-MIL-53/g-C 3 N 4 cascade Z-Scheme heterostructure nanocomposite was fabricated by a simple one-pot method. UiO-66 was first inserted into MIL-53/g-C 3 N 4 heterojunction as an electron-energy platform owing to its wide band gap, which blocked the type II charge transfer channel. The experimental results revealed that after visible light illumination for 45 min, the degradation rate of tetracycline in the optimized cascade Z-Scheme system was twice as high as that of MIL-53/g-C 3 N 4 and superior to the literature data. · O 2 – and·OH were detected as the main free radicals involved in the Z-Scheme photocatalytic reaction system. Furthermore, HPLC-MS was applied to detect the intermediate products in the photodegradation of tetracycline for a better understanding of the mechanism of the photocatalytic degradation process.