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MoS2-based nanocomposites on carbon fibers (CFs) have been well developed, but their practical applications are still limited owing to the unsatisfactory adsorption and photodegradation performances. To deal with these issues, we report the growth of UiO-66-NH2 nanoparticles as a porous co-photocatalyst to decorate MoS2 nanosheets on CFs. CFs/MoS2/UiO-66-NH2 bundles are woven into a macroscopical cloth (4 × 4 cm2, 0.15 g). CFs/MoS2/UiO-66-NH2 cloth can efficiently adsorb 34.9% levofloxacin (LVFX) and 35.3% hexavalent chromium (Cr(VI)) after 60 min, which is an obvious improvement (1.3–2.9 times) compared with that by CFs/MoS2 cloth. Importantly, the cloth can remove 88.4% LVFX or 98.4% Cr(VI) within 120 min, which is 1.6–2.7 times compared with that by CFs/MoS2 cloth, resulting from the high adsorption and two-component synergistic photocatalytic activity. Furthermore, CFs/MoS2/UiO-66-NH2 shows a slight decline from 88.4% to 76.9% under visible light irradiation after 4 cycles. Thus, the semiconductor/MOF-based heterojunction on CF provides a general strategy to develop novel weavable photocatalysts for eliminating various pollutants.

Fabricating p-n junctions is an effective strategy to broaden the photoabsorption range and promote electron-hole separation of semiconductor photocatalysts. However, most of the p-n junctions are powder-shaped. Herein, TiO2/BiOI as the model of the p-n junction was applied to be fixed on carbon fiber (CF) to fabricate weavable CF/TiO2/BiOI bundles, which shows strong and broad-spectrum photoabsorption in 200–800 nm. Besides, these bundles were further weaved into cloth (0.1 g, 4 × 4 cm2), which exhibits superior adsorption and photodegradation efficiency for various pollutants with visible (Vis) or UV–Vis light irradiation. The obtained CF/TiO2/BiOI cloth can efficiently remove 99.2% methylene blue (MB), 100% rhodamine B (RhB), 100% tetracycline (TC), 97.1% ciprofloxacin (CIP) and 98.9% levofloxacin (LVFX) in 80 min under UV–vis light irradiation, which is higher than that under Vis (91.3% MB, 95.7% RhB, 90.3% TC, 92.7% CIP and 93.8% LVFX) light irradiation. After five cycles, CF/TiO2/BiOI cloth still retains an excellent photocatalytic activity for LVFX degradation (92.1%) under UV–vis irradiation with an easy reusing process. This study provides some insights into the fabrication of reusable macroscopical photocatalysts with high efficiency for environmental purification.

The photocatalytic degradation of tetracycline (TC) in water has received much attention, but its practical application in the river has been limited by a lack of efficient and recyclable visible-light-driven photocatalysts. To solve this problem, with flexible carbon fiber (CF) bundles as substrate, we have reported the in-situ growth of g-C3N4/BiOBr heterojunctions as weaveable photocatalyst. g-C3N4 nanosheets (thickness: ~30 nm, diameter: 0.4–1 μm) and BiOBr layer (thickness: ~25 nm, diameter: 200–500 nm) were grown on CFs successively. CFs/g-C3N4/BiOBr bundles could be woven into cloth (area: 5 × 5 cm2, weight: 0.15 g), and the cloth exhibited remarkably enhanced photodegradation efficiency (86.1%) for degrading TC-HCl in 120 min. In addition, h+, O2− and OH were demonstrated as the reactive species contributing to the elimination of TC-HCl. Especially, two possible pathways of degrading TC-HCl were proposed based on the intermediate products. Thus, CFs/g-C3N4/BiOBr could serve as a flexible, weaveable and recyclable photocatalyst for antibiotic elimination in an aqueous environment.