Construction of super small-sized BiVO4 @SiO2 composites with high photocatalytic performance for tetracycline degradation

The ubiquitous presence of tetracycline in water source due to its prevalent usage as antibiotics poses a potential risk to ecosystem and human health, which is in dire need of high removal efficiency. To this end, we constructed a series of super small-sized BiVO4 composites with different loading amount of 5 wt%, 10 wt%, 15 wt%, 20 wt%, and 25 wt% on SiO2 support by hydrothermal-calcination method for efficient photocatalytic degradation of tetracycline. XRD and SEM results revealed that these composites all exhibited good crystalline and well-dispersed morphologies. Particularly, 20 wt% BiVO4@SiO2 of this series of composites showed superior photocatalytic performance with the highest efficiency of 84.1% for tetracycline degradation compared to its counterparts. This can be rationalized by its wide light absorption range and high charge separation efficiency as confirmed by UV-Vis absorption spectra and quenched fluorescence spectra. This work would offer a new way for the design and construction of tetracycline degradation photocatalysts.