Fabrication of magnetically recoverable Fe3O4/CdS/g-C3N4 photocatalysts for effective degradation of ciprofloxacin under visible light

Photocatalytic technology is an environmentally safe method of eliminating organic pollutants and antibiotics in wastewater. In this research, the performance of Fe3O4/CdS/g-C3N4 (FCN) photocatalyst for degradation of antibiotics was studied. The composite photocatalysts with different concentrations of g-C3N4 were prepared. FCN has better photocatalytic activity than degradation dyes in removal of antibiotics under visible light. This indicates that FCN could effectively hinder the recombination of carriers, and the addition of g-C3N4 increases the optical response range of CdS. At the same time, the introduction of Fe3O4 magnetic nanoparticles overcomes the problem of difficulty in recovery of the powder photocatalyst. The photocatalytic activity is not reduced to any significant after three cycles of use.