Construction of NH2-MIL-101(Fe) /TiO2 Heterojunction to Enhance the Charge Transfer in Photocatalytic Degradation of Antibiotics

As an indispensable medicine, antibiotics are widely used in daily life, but following the substantial discharge of various wastewater, which result in antibiotic resistance of microbial pathogens and jeopardizes the health of ecosystems. There is an urgent need to tackle drug residues. After decades of intensive research, photocatalysis technology has been developed into an efficient technology for wastewater treatment due to its economic and environmental-friendly properties. Here, the photocatalyst NH2-MIL-101(Fe)/TiO2 composite was fabricated to degrade the antibiotics: tetracycline hydrochloride (TC), doxycycline hydrochloride (DC), and levofloxacin hydrochloride (LEV). The NH2-MIL-101(Fe)/TiO2 photocatalysts exhibited excellent visible light harvesting performance with a narrow band gap (2.19 eV), low recombination ratio of photoinduced carriers, good photoelectric response, low resistance and long charging life. NH2-MIL-101(Fe)/TiO2 (MT0.50 molar ratio Fe:Ti = 1:1) showed the highest degradation effect, with the degradation rates of 91.52