Surface plasmon effect combined with S-scheme charge migration in flower-like Ag/Ag6Si2O7/Bi12O17Cl2 enables efficient photocatalytic antibiotic degradation

Developing robust photocatalysts for photocatalytic environment decontamination is significant and challenging. A novel flower-like S-scheme Ag/Ag6Si2O7/Bi12O17Cl2 (AASO/BOC) plasmonic heterojunction is successfully constructed using a facile route, and applied in photocatalytic destruction of tetracycline hydrochloride (TC) and levofloxacin (LEV) under visible-light irradiation. Benefiting from the combination of S-scheme Bi12O17Cl2/Ag6Si2O7 heterojunction and the plasma Ag, the production and separation of photogenerated carriers are dramatically enhanced. Consequently, compared to the pristine Bi12O17Cl2 and Ag6Si2O7, AASO/BOC displays superior photocatalytic degradation performance. Impressively, the photocatalytic TC degradation rate of AASO/BOC-2 reaches 0.0260 min(-1), which is approximately 3.1, 14.4 and 2.0 times those of Bi12O17Cl2, Ag6Si2O7 and Bi12O17Cl2/Ag6Si2O7, respectively. Moreover, the photocatalytic mechanism of TC degradation is studied in depth via various techniques, and the photogenerated OH, O-2(-) and h(+) collectively contribute to the photo-degradation of TC. This research puts forward a neoteric approach to designing plasmonic S-scheme photocatalysts for environmental applications.