Fabricated Ag/Ag₂S/reduced graphene oxide composite photocatalysts for enhancing visible light photocatalytic and antibacterial activity

In this work, we reported one kind of photocatalytic and antibacterial materials, Ag/Ag₂S/reduced graphene oxide (rGO), which prepared by the hydrothermal and UV-light-assisted reduction methods. The Ag₂S nanoparticals were well dispersed on the surface of rGO as revealed by series of characterization. The obtained Ag/Ag₂S/rGO photocatalyst showed excellent photocatalytic degradation efficiency of 87.6% for ciprofloxacin (CIP) under visible light irradiation and outstanding antibacterial activity for Escherichia coli (E. coli) which reached to 97.76% in 24 h. The trapping of active species showed that the hydroxyl radicals, holes and superoxide radicals played important roles in the photocatalytic degradation of CIP processes.