Construction of double 3D flower-like CoWO4/(1T/2H)-MoS2 Z-scheme heterojunctions with S defects for enhanced visible light-driven removal of gatifloxacin hydrochloride

Pollution resulting from antibiotics is a widespread problem, so it is crucial to provide an effective treatment method to reduce antibiotics from wastewater. In this study, to enhance the photocatalytic degradation of gatifloxacin hydrochloride (GAT-HCl) under visible light over MoS2, CoWO4 coupling and S defects were used to co-modify MoS2 to obtain CoWO4/1 T @ 2 H-MoS2 (CM) heterojunction catalyst. The prepared CM exhibited enhanced photocatalytic GAT-HCl degradation efficiency and could degrade approximately 91.6% of GAT-HCl in 50 min with a degradation rate constant of 0.0319 min-1, which was 11.39 and 12.76 times higher than that of pure MoS2 (0.0028 min-1) and CoWO4 (0.0025 min- 1), respectively. The boosted GAT-HCl degradation over CM was attributed to the fact that CM could expose more exfoliation defects, trap photogenerated holes, promote the rapid separation and transfer of photogenerated carriers, release more active substances such as & sdot;O2-, and enhance the interaction between the antibiotic and the active substances, which in turn facilitated the oxidative mineralization of GAT-HCl. CM has good reusability and the mechanism of enhanced photocatalytic degradation of GAT-HCl was proposed. This study provides a new strategy for the rational design of high-performance photo-catalysts for water pollution remediation.