Development of ZnFe₂O₄@CdS Core–Shell Nanocomposites for Enhanced Visible-Light Photocatalytic Degradation of Tetracycline

In this paper, a novel type of core–shell structured ZnFe₂O₄@CdS composite photocatalyst is successfully synthesized by a facile two-step strategy method. The corresponding morphology, structure and optical properties of developed photocatalyst were well characterized. The photocatalytic degradation of tetracycline (TC) experiments indicated that the ZnFe₂O₄@CdS core–shell exhibited a higher photocatalytic activity than the pure ZnFe₂O₄ and CdS under the visible light irradiation, especially 0.1 g ZnFe₂O₄@CdS composites with a content of 78 wt.% CdS resulted in 95.31% degradation of 20 mg/L TC in 90 min. with 0.1 g catalyst. Furthermore, the photodegradation mechanism was investigated by trapping experiments, which revealed that ^.O^–2 was the most active species in the photodegradation process. And the possible process of charge transfer for ZnFe₂O₄@CdS composite photocatalyst was proposed based on the experimental results.