Synergistic efficiency of functionalized MWCNT stimulated ZnFe2O4/BiOBr heterostructure for enhanced removal of brilliant green and tetracycline hydrochloride

Water pollution due to organic pollutants poses a significant environmental threat, necessitating the development of effective materials for their complete removal. This study introduces a novel Z-scheme ZnFeO/MWCNT/BiOBr (ZMB) ternary composite to enhance the removal of brilliant green (BG) dye and tetracycline hydrochloride (TCH) antibiotic. The synthesized materials were comprehensively analyzed using a range of characterization techniques, including XRD, UV–Vis DRS, FTIR, SEM, TEM, EDX mapping, BET, and XPS. A series of ternary composite materials with varying percent mass ratios of ZnFeO was synthesized, of which the optimized 6ZMB composite (6 % mass ratio of ZnFeO) demonstrates the highest degradation rates for BG (99.9 %) and TCH (95.1 %) within 20 and 100 min, respectively. Trapping experiments confirmed that O• and •OH were the main reactive species responsible for the degradation of BG and TCH pollutants. The NBT transformation experiments and PL terephthalic acid probe method further confirmed the involvement of O• and •OH, respectively. Furthermore, the adsorption isotherm study showed that BG adsorption onto the 6ZMB ternary composite predominantly followed the Langmuir model, with a high regression coefficient (0.9963 and 0.9777 for linear and nonlinear fit, respectively), indicating effective and consistent adsorption through chemisorption.