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Updated: May 7, 2026

A Complete Method for Evaluating the Performance of Photocatalysts for the Degradation of Antibiotics in Environmental Remediation
Published on: October 6, 2022
Supramolecularly Stabilized Corrole Complex Anchored onto Recyclable Magnetic Beads for Robust Photochemical
Xuan Zhan1,2, Chenyang Sun1, Yikun Wang1
1School of Chemical Engineering and Technology, Sun Yat-sen University, Zhuhai 519082, China.
Abstract:
Although photochemical antibiotic degradation based on particulate photocatalysts represents a promising strategy for green water treatment, it faces significant hurdles regarding catalyst activity, stability, and recoverability. To overcome these limitations, we report a magnetically recyclable photocatalyst engineered by the supramolecular encapsulation of a highly active phosphorus corrole photosensitizer within a chitosan matrix, followed by covalent immobilization onto Fe3O4 magnetic beads. The formation of extended hydrogen-bonding networks between the corrole and chitosan host markedly enhances the photostability of the corrole, while the magnetic core ensures rapid catalyst recovery without compromising the intrinsic photoactivity. Under natural sunlight, the composite achieves >99% removal of 10 structurally diverse antibiotics from authentic hospital wastewater, maintaining efficacy over 8 consecutive cycles with negligible mass loss (<0.1 mg). Notably, using tetracycline as a representative probe substrate, the system exhibits a mass-normalized pseudo-first-order rate constant of 1.24 × 104 min-1 g-1 (AM 1.5G), outperforming the best-performing heterogeneous photocatalyst reported to date by approximately 3 orders of magnitude. This work represents an effective strategy to unlock the photochemical potential of corrole in wastewater treatment and may be extended to other fields such as fine-chemical synthesis, clean fuel production, etc.

