Novel assembly of BiVO@N-Biochar nanocomposite for efficient detoxification of triclosan.

The wide spread of antibacterial and antifungal agents demands in growing multifunctional materials to completely eliminate these organic contaminants in water. BiVO (Bismuth vanadate) is a superior catalyst under visible light but suffers with high photoelectron-hole pair recombination rate and poor adsorption capacity which limits its efficiency. Addition of N-doped Biochar (N-Biochar) to BiVO with large specific surface area and high conductivity are anticipated to overcome the problem and promote the catalytic performance. Thus, the present study developed a simple hydrothermal method to prepare BiVO@N-Biochar catalyst for efficient detoxification of Triclosan (TCS). The morphological analysis results suggested that BiVO particles were evenly distributed on carbon surface amongst the N-Biochar matrix. Within 60 min of visible light irradiation, nearly 94.6% TCS degradation efficiency was attained by BiVO@N-Biochar (k = 0.02154 min) while only 56.7% was attained with pure BiVO (k = 0.00637 min). In addition, LC-MS/MS technique was utilized to determine the TCS degradation products generation in the photodegradation process and pathway was proposed. Furthermore, the E. coli (Escherichia coli) colony forming unit assay was used to determine the biotoxicity of the degradation products in which 72.3 ± 2.6% of detoxification efficiency was achieved and suggested a substantial reduction in biotoxicity during the photodegradation.