A Novel Synthesis of Iron-Oxy-Halides (Fox)-Based Metallic Microsponges (Fox-Ms): An Efficient Photodegradation of Antibiotics

Abstract

The present study is related to the synthesis of metallic oxy halide nanosheets (FOX) assembled metallic micron-sponge (FOX-MS)-based photocatalytic materials using hydrothermal process to degrade tetracycline (TC) antibiotics. The synthesis of FOX-MS is accomplished by exchanging O? with I? that efficiently tunes the electronic structure (Fe3O4 or Fe2O3 to form FeOI) and band gap of FeOI. Interestingly, the band gap value decreases with increasing the reaction temperature from 120 to 180 °C attributed to the formation of stable FeOI due to maximum O? exchange with I?. Scanning electron microscopy, X-ray diffraction, Fourier-transform infrared spectroscopy (FT-IR), and diffuse reflectance spectroscopy were used to characterize synthesized FOX-MS-based photocatalyst materials. Additionally, upon increasing the Fe metal amount (from 0.5 to 1 mM) during the synthesis the band gap decreases. However, further increment in the amount of Fe metal during synthesis increases the band gap value. The lower band gap value of ~ 1.82 eV with ECB and EVB value of 0.48 eV and 2.3 eV is in good agreement with the reported low band gap semiconductors for the degradation of various pollutants. The synthesized FOX-MS was efficiently degrading ~ 63% at 10 mgL?1 of TC. Interestingly, Fenton activity of FOX-MS-based photocatalytic materials improved the TC degradation and achieved maximum degradation of ~ 94% at 10 mgL?1 of TC antibiotics. The degradation of TC antibiotics was also performed under acidic and basic pH conditions to confirm the mechanistic pattern of degradation of TC using FeOI-based metallic microsponge. To the best of our knowledge, this is the first report of the synthesis of FeOI metallic microsponge using a hydrothermal process. Graphical abstract: (Figure presented.) © The Author(s), under exclusive licence to Springer-Verlag GmbH Germany, part of Springer Nature 2024.