Hydrogen Production and Degradation of Ciprofloxacin by Ag@TiO<sub>2</sub>-MoS<sub>2</sub> Photocatalysts

The photocatalytic activity of silver-based catalysts containing different amounts of molybdenum disulfide (MoS<sub>2</sub>; 5, 10 and 20 wt.%) was evaluated by the degradation of the antibiotic ciprofloxacin and the production of hydrogen via water splitting. All the silver (Ag)-based c...

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Bibliographic Details
Main Authors: Abniel Machín, Kenneth Fontánez, Diego García, Paola Sampayo, Carla Colón-Cruz, Gerardo J. Claudio-Serrano, Loraine Soto-Vázquez, Edgard Resto, Florian I. Petrescu, Carmen Morant, Francisco Márquez
Format: Article
Language:English
Published: MDPI AG 2022-02-01
Series:Catalysts
Subjects:
Online Access:https://www.mdpi.com/2073-4344/12/3/267
Description
Summary:The photocatalytic activity of silver-based catalysts containing different amounts of molybdenum disulfide (MoS<sub>2</sub>; 5, 10 and 20 wt.%) was evaluated by the degradation of the antibiotic ciprofloxacin and the production of hydrogen via water splitting. All the silver (Ag)-based catalysts degraded more than 70% of the antibiotic in 60 min. The catalyst that exhibited the best result was 5%Ag@TiO<sub>2</sub>-P25-5%MoS<sub>2</sub>, with ca. 91% of degradation. The control experiments and stability tests showed that photocatalysis was the degradation pathway and the selected silver-based catalysts were stable after seven cycles, with less than 2% loss of efficiency per cycle and less than 7% after seven cycles. The catalyst with the highest hydrogen production was 5%Ag@TiO<sub>2</sub> NWs-20%MoS<sub>2</sub>, 1792 μmol/hg, at a wavelength of 400 nm. This amount was ca. 32 times greater than that obtained by the pristine titanium oxide nanowires catalyst. The enhancement was attributed to the high surface area of the catalysts, along with the synergism created by the silver nanoparticles and MoS<sub>2</sub>. All the catalysts were characterized by X-ray photoelectron spectroscopy (XPS), X-ray diffraction (XRD), Raman spectroscopy, field-emission scanning electron microscopy (FE-SEM), high-resolution transmission electron microscopy (HRTEM), Brunauer–Emmett–Teller (BET) surface area analysis and energy dispersive X-ray spectroscopy (EDS).
ISSN:2073-4344