Construction of 3D marigold-like direct Z-scheme heterojunction In2O3/CdS with boosted photocatalytic degradation of antibiotics under visible light

In the present work, a 3D marigold-like direct Z-scheme heterojunction photocatalyst of In2O3/CdS was fabricated through in-situ growth technology. Both characterization and experiment results show that the as-synthetised In2O3/CdS possesses outstanding reusability and stability, and high separation rates of photogenerated e−/h+ pairs. The catalyst of In2O3/CdS has a satisfactory degradation efficiency of 84.8% for doxycycline hydrochloride and 79.0% for levofloxacin within 60 min. Doxycycline hydrochloride and levofloxacin are eventually destroyed and decomposed by •O2−, •OH and h+ radicals resulted from In2O3/CdS under vis-light. And the contribution of free radicals follow the order of •O2− > •OH > h+. The transfer path of e−/h+ and the generation of •O2−and •OH in the In2O3/CdS are attributed to the formation of Z-scheme heterojunction. Generally, the heterojunction formation between In2O3 and CdS is more conducive to the improvement of photocatalytic performance. The as-synthetised heterojunction In2O3/CdS is a quite promising photocatalyst in water pollution controlling.