Plasmonic silver/silver oxide nanoparticles anchored bismuth vanadate as a novel visible-light ternary photocatalyst for degrading pharmaceutical micropollutants

The degradation of pharmaceutical micropollutants is an intensifying environmental problem and synthesis of efficient photocatalysts for this purpose is one of the foremost challenges worldwide. Therefore, this study was conducted to develop novel plasmonic Ag/Ag 2 O/BiVO 4 nanocomposite photocatalysts by simple precipitation and thermal decomposition methods, which could exhibit higher photocatalytic activity for mineralized pharmaceutical micropollutants. Among the different treatments, the best performance was observed for the Ag/Ag 2 O/BiVO 4 nanocomposites (5 wt.%; 10 min's visible light irradiation) which exhibited 6.57 times higher photodegradation rate than the pure BiVO 4 . Further, the effects of different influencing factors on the photodegradation system of tetracycline hydrochloride (TC-HCl) were investigated and the feasibility for its practical application was explored through the specific light sources, water source and cycle experiments. The mechanistic study demonstrated that the photogenerated holes (h + ), superoxide radicals (•O 2 − ) and hydroxyl radicals (•OH) participated in TC-HCl removal process, which is different from the pure BiVO 4 reaction system. Hence, the present work can provide a new approach for the formation of novel plasmonic photocatalysts with high photoactivity and can act as effective practical application for environmental remediation.