In situ hydrothermal fabrication of visible light-driven g-C3N4/SrTiO3 composite for photocatalytic degradation of TC.

A series of g-C3N4/SrTiO3 (CN/SrTiO3) composites with the different mass ratio of g-C3N4 were prepared by facile in situ hydrothermal growth method, which was utilized to degrade tetracycline antibiotics (TC) under the visible light. The obtained samples were characterized by XRD, SEM, XPS, FT-IR, and UV-vis DRS. The photocatalytic performance was also investigated in detail. The obtained 20% CN/SrTiO3 composite is sixfold of the pure SrTiO3 and twofold of the pristine g-C3N4 under the visible light irradiation. This impressive performance of the heterojunction is ascribed to the effective restraint of the charge carrier recombination and expanded light absorption region. Moreover, the stability of the composite is also researched in detail. At last, a possible photocatalytic mechanism and charge carrier transfer pathway were further discussed.