Development of ZnFe2O4@CdS Core–Shell Nanocomposites for Enhanced Visible-Light Photocatalytic Degradation of Tetracycline

In this paper, a novel type of core–shell structured ZnFe2O4@CdS composite photocatalyst is successfully synthesized by a facile two-step strategy method. The corresponding morphology, structure and optical properties of developed photocatalyst were well characterized. The photocatalytic degradation of tetracycline (TC) experiments indicated that the ZnFe2O4@CdS core–shell exhibited a higher photocatalytic activity than the pure ZnFe2O4 and CdS under the visible light irradiation, especially 0.1 g ZnFe2O4@CdS composites with a content of 78 wt.% CdS resulted in 95.31% degradation of 20 mg/L TC in 90 min. with 0.1 g catalyst. Furthermore, the photodegradation mechanism was investigated by trapping experiments, which revealed that .O–2 was the most active species in the photodegradation process. And the possible process of charge transfer for ZnFe2O4@CdS composite photocatalyst was proposed based on the experimental results.