Direct Z-scheme mediated SmVO/UiO-66-NH heterojunction nanocomposite for the degradation of antibiotic tetracycline hydrochloride molecules under sunlight.

The use of tetracycline hydrochloride (TCH) for veterinary, human therapy, and agriculture has risen in the past few decades, making it to become one of the most exploited antibiotics. However, TCH residue in the environment is causing issues related to the evolution of antibiotic-resistant bacteria. To address such a problem, photodegradation offers a potential solution to decompose these pollutants in wastewater and thereby mitigates negative environmental impacts. In this context, the research focuses on the use of the rare-earth metal oxide samarium orthovanadate (SmVO) with nanorod structure, coupled with UiO-66-NH for the photocatalytic degradation. Their photocatalytic activity to degrade antibiotic TCH molecules is explored under simulated solar light irradiation. The integration of UiO-66-NH with SmVO enhanced the light absorption, recombination resistance, carrier lifetime (from 0.382 to 0.411 ns) and specific surface area (from 67.17 to 246 m/g) of the composite system as confirmed from multiple analyses. The obtained results further indicated that SmVO/UiO-66-NH nanocomposites could form a direct Z-scheme based heterojunction. Such mechanism of charge transfer leads to the effective degradation of TCH molecules up to 50% in 90 min under solar light, while it is degraded only 30% in the case of bare-SmVO nanorods. In this work, the incorporation of UiO-66-NH positively influences photoelectrochemical properties and improves the overall photoredox properties of SmVO for the degradation of complex compounds like antibiotic TCH molecules. Therefore, UiO-66-NH can be proposed as an effective material to sensitize the rare-earth based photocatalytic material.