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Abstract
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Pollution of water resources by antibiotics is a
growing environmental concern. In this work, nanocomposites
of g-C3N4@Ni−Ti layered double hydroxides (g-C3N4@Ni−
Ti LDH NCs) with high surface areas were synthesized
through an optimized hydrothermal method, in the presence
of NH4F. Application of various characterization techniques
unraveled that the prepared nanocomposites are composed of
porous Ni−Ti LDH nanoparticles and hierarchical g-C3N4
nanosheets. Further, these NCs were employed for photocatalytic
and sonophotocatalytic removal of amoxicillin
(AMX), as a model antibiotic, from aqueous solutions. In
addition, sonocatalysis was performed. It was found out that
the g-C3N4@Ni−Ti LDH NCs outperform their pure g-C3N4 and Ni−Ti LDH components in photocatalytic degradation of
AMX under visible light irradiation. Also, the following order was determined for efficiency of the three adopted processes:
sonocatalysis < photocatalysis < sonophotocatalysis. Furthermore, variation of the sonophotocatalysis conditions specified 500
W light intensity, 9 s on/1 s off ultrasound pulse modem and 1.25 g/L g-C3N4-20@Ni−Ti LDH as the optimal conditions. In
this way, optimization of the highly efficient sonophotocatalytic process resulted in 99.5% AMX degradation within 75 min.
Moreover, a TOC analyzer was employed to estimate the rate of AMX degradation over the nanocomposites. In addition,
formation of hydroxyl radicals (•OH) on the surface of the g-C3N4-20@Ni−Ti LDH particles was approved using the
terephthalic acid probe in photoluminescence (PL) spectroscopy. No significant loss was observed in the sonophotocatalytic
activity of the nanocomposites even after five consecutive runs. Also, a plausible mechanism was proposed for the
sonophotocatalysis reaction. In general, our findings can be considered as a starting point for synthesis of other g-C3N4-based
NCs and application of the resultant nanocomposites to environmental remediation.
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