Boosting photocatalytic performance of silver phosphate via coupling with P-doped carbon for amoxicillin degradation

Amoxicillin (AMX) could result in risks to ecosystems and organisms in the environment, and photocatalysis is regarded as an effective technology for catalytic degradation of antibiotics. In this study, for the first time, we doped element P into ultra-thin three-dimensional carbon nanosheets to prepare P-doped carbon materials (PCs), and then coupled them with Ag3PO4 to prepare Ag3PO4 @PC composites successfully. The novel composite catalyst was used for photocatalytic degradation of AMX in aqueous solution. Results showed that the photocatalytic performance and cycle stability of Ag3PO4 @PC were much better than that of Ag3PO4 monomer. Under visible light conditions, the degradation efficiency of AMX by the composite catalyst under 3 min of light irradiation could reach 100%, and the corresponding apparent rate constant of AMX degradation was 0.0251 s-1. The DFT calculation results indicated that there was a large built-in potential well at the interface between PC and Ag3PO4, which can effectively reduce the internal recombination of photogenerated electron-hole pairs and improve the photocatalytic performance of the composite catalyst. This study provides an efficient visible light catalyst, and could be referred for appropriate design of innovative visible light photocatalysts.