Construction of TiO2 on cotton straw deposited on g-C3N4 heterojunction to improve the photocatalytic degradation activity of methylene blue and tetracycline

In this study, agricultural waste cotton stalk was used as biomass carbon source, calcined with TiO 2 at a high temperature, deposited in a TiO 2 lattice, and used as an electron acceptor to inhibit photogenerated electron recombination. Subsequently, it underwent secondary calcination with g-C 3 N 4 to form a C-TiO 2 /g-C 3 N 4 composite catalyst. Experimental results showed that the coupling of carbon-doped TiO 2 and g-C 3 N 4 accelerated photogenerated electron–hole pairs pair migration, effectively inhibited the recombination of photogenerated carriers, and thus improved the removal efficiency of methylene blue (MB) and tetracycline hydrochloride (TC). Upon irradiation with a 500 W xenon lamp, the degradation rates of MB and TC achieved were 92.6 % and 95.3 % in 90 min, respectively.