LAUSR

Abstract Cyhalothrin is lethally toxic to aquatic organisms and has caused adverse effects in the hydrosphere. It is urgent to develop efficient and sustainable material for its removal. High-quality HKUST-1 was rapidly synthesized by cholinium ionic liquids (ILs) in water at room temperature. Yields of HKUST-1 showed obviously positive correlation with Hammett values of ILs. When applying CuCl2 as a copper salt, the yield of products was reached up to 95.5%, which was much higher than that of reported research. The reaction could be readily scalable with high space-time yield (242512 kg m−3 d−1). Additionally, ZrO2@HKUST-1 composite was successfully synthesized through a sol-gel method without complicated heat treatment. The whole process eliminates the use of environmentally unfriendly solvents/amines and enables the production of material at a reasonable cost. The obtained HKUST-1 and ZrO2@HKUST-1 possessed large pore volume (0.88–0.95 cm3 g−1) and high surface area (1152–1484 m2 g−1). The composite material was used for the adsorption/degradation of cyhalothrin and showed superior photocatalytic activity under moderate visible light, as compared to pure ZrO2, HKUST-1 and commercial TiO2 samples. ZrO2@HKUST-1 displayed the high cyhalothrin adsorption capacity of 333 mg g−1 through π−π stacking, which facilitated more target molecules to contact the composite in a short time. ZrO2 incorporating with HKUST-1 protected ZrO2 nanoparticles from rapid agglomeration, thus narrowed the band gap of the composite. Moreover, the formation of a junction between HKUST-1 and ZrO2 effectively reduced the recombination of photoinduced carriers in composite. Therefore, the novel ZrO2@HKUST-1 composite can be used as a sustainable efficient heterogeneous photocatalyst for the removal of organic pollutant.