Graphene Oxide Decorated Ce2S3 Nanocomposite for Efficient Photocatalytic Degradation of Tetracycline

Abstract

Photocatalysis technology has been shown to be a promising and effective method for solving the growing energy and environmental challenges through the use of solar energy. In this work, Ce2S3 semiconductor photocatalysts decorated with small amounts of reduced graphene oxides are successfully synthesized by hydrothermal and calcination methods. The synthesized Ce2S3-RGO nanocomposite shows outstanding photocatalytic performance on the degradation of tetracycline (TC). The combination of Ce2S3 and RGO significantly promotes the separation of photon-generated carriers. The degradation rate of TC achieves 76% under visible light, which is 2.5 times over the pure Ce2S3 sample. In addition, a series of characterizations demonstrate that the introduction of RGO expands the visible light absorption range and increases the number of active sites. This work introduces the pivotal role of graphene oxide in the field of photocatalytic degradation and offers novel insights for the reasonable construction of effective composite photocatalysts.