LAUSR

Abstract The photocatalytic degradation of tetracycline (TC) in water has received much attention, but its practical application in the river has been limited by a lack of efficient and recyclable visible-light-driven photocatalysts. To solve this problem, with flexible carbon fiber (CF) bundles as substrate, we have reported the in-situ growth of g-C3N4/BiOBr heterojunctions as weaveable photocatalyst. g-C3N4 nanosheets (thickness: ~30 nm, diameter: 0.4–1 μm) and BiOBr layer (thickness: ~25 nm, diameter: 200–500 nm) were grown on CFs successively. CFs/g-C3N4/BiOBr bundles could be woven into cloth (area: 5 × 5 cm2, weight: 0.15 g), and the cloth exhibited remarkably enhanced photodegradation efficiency (86.1%) for degrading TC-HCl in 120 min. In addition, h+, O2− and OH were demonstrated as the reactive species contributing to the elimination of TC-HCl. Especially, two possible pathways of degrading TC-HCl were proposed based on the intermediate products. Thus, CFs/g-C3N4/BiOBr could serve as a flexible, weaveable and recyclable photocatalyst for antibiotic elimination in an aqueous environment.