Tailoring the morphology and surface plasmon coupling of BiVO₄ toward efficient visible-light degradation of...

The development of efficient and sustainable photocatalysts for removing antibiotic pollutants from water remains an environmental challenge. In this work, a "greener" ethylenediaminetetraacetic acid disodium salt (EDTA-2Na)-assisted solvothermal route was proposed to tailor the morphology and interfacial properties of BiVO₄, enhancing its visible-light photocatalytic performance via plasmonic silver nanoparticles. Among the prepared photocatalysts, BVO-0.1 and Ag/BVO-0.1 exhibited outstanding photocatalytic activity, achieving nearly complete degradation of tetracycline hydrochloride (98.2 %) and sulfamethoxazole (96.4 %), respectively, under visible-light light-emitting diode (LED) irradiation. Radical trapping experiments revealed that photogenerated holes (h⁺) and superoxide radicals (^•O₂^-) were the dominant reactive species responsible for antibiotic degradation. Furthermore, degradation pathway analysis combined with quantitative structure-activity relationship (QSAR)-based toxicity evaluation confirmed the stepwise transformation and mineralization of sulfamethoxazole into less harmful products. This study provides new insights into the sustainable design of BiVO₄-based photocatalysts by integrating crystal-facet engineering with plasmonic interfacial coupling, enabling an effective and environmentally benign approach for the visible-light removal of antibiotic pollutants from water.