Construction of quartz sand@g-C3N4/CoFe-LDH core/shell heterostructures for boosted visible-light driven photothermal-assisted photocatalytic wastewater purification

The construction of excellent photocatalysts that maximize the use of solar spectra for addressing water pollution issues is urgently needed. Herein, an efficient photothermal-assisted photocatalytic water treatment system was constructed by applying a coating of g-C3N4/CoFe-LDH heterostructure onto quartz sand. In this system, the addition of the quartz sand core in g-C3N4/CoFe-LDH coated quartz sand can enhance the temperature of the nucleus, acting as a thermal catalyst to generate heat for g-C3N4/CoFe-LDH photocatalysts, this increase in temperature promotes surface reactions and facilitates collisions caused by photo-generated particles, leading to intense recombination of charge carriers, thereby improving the ability to degrade pollutants. Rhodamine B (pH = 7) and tetracycline (pH = 6.8) were degraded by 95.35 % and 75.05 %, respectively, under 480 min of illumination, 40 g/L of photocatalyst, and 10 mg/L of solution concentration. After 5 cycles, the removal rates of RhB and TC were still as high as 79.63 % and 53.24 %. In addition, a detailed study was conducted on possible photodegradation pathways to better reveal the photodegradation process.