Enhanced photocatalytic activity of TiO 2 /UiO-67 under visible-light for aflatoxin B1 degradation.

TiO 2 has great potential in photocatalytic degradation of organic pollutants, but poor visible light response and low separation efficiency of photogenerated electron-hole pairs limit its wide applications. In this study, we have successfully prepared TiO 2 /UiO-67 photocatalyst through an in situ solvothermal method. The degradation rate of aflatoxin B1 (AFB1) is 98.9% in only 80 min, which is superior to the commercial P25, commercial TiO 2 and most of reported photocatalysts under visible light irradiation. In addition, the TiO 2 /UiO-67 photocatalyst showed excellent recyclability. We demonstrated that the enhanced photocatalytic mechanism was owing to the heterojunction between TiO 2 and UiO-67, which enhanced effectively the separation photogenerated charge carriers and visible light response. The free radical trapping tests demonstrated that superoxide radicals (˙O 2 - ), holes (h + ) and hydroxyl radicals (˙OH) were the main active species and then oxidized AFB1 to some small molecules.