Natural minerals are generally accepted as one of the most suitable carriers to support TiO₂ in photocatalytic and other applications because of their abundance, low cost, large surface area, and easy recyclability. Hence, in this work, a novel 0D/2D TiO₂/kaolinite composite endowed with presence of oxygen vacancies and surface defect sites was synthesized through a mild sol-gel method combining with nitrogen induction. Ciprofloxacin (CIP) was taken as the main target organic pollutant to study the photocatalytic performance of the synthesized catalyst. The results showed that the nitrogen treated TiO₂/kaolinite composite exhibited improving degradation performance for adsorption-photocatalytic elimination of CIP within broad radiation spectrum (200–800 nm). The synthesized composite exhibited enhanced reaction rate constant which is nearly 7.00, 2.54 and 3.13 times higher than that of bare TiO₂ treated with air under UV, solar, and visible light, respectively. Moreover, the newly prepared composite also exhibited significant enhancement towards the removal of formaldehyde under both UV and visible light. Radical scavenger experiments and ESR results indicated that holes should be the main oxidizing species within broad spectrum in the degradation system. The enhanced activity of nitrogen treated composite is mainly attributed to the induced oxygen vacancies as well as the intimate interface contact between TiO₂ and kaolinite, resulting in smaller grain size, higher light absorption ability, and faster carrier separation efficiency. It is expected that this high-efficiency composite photocatalyst based on natural minerals will be a promising candidate for the elimination of pharmaceutical and personal care products and volatile organic compounds within broad radiation spectrum.

天然矿物由于其含量丰富，成本低，表面积大且易于回收利用，因此被广泛接受为在光催化和其他应用中负载TiO ₂的最合适载体之一。因此，在这项工作中，通过温和的溶胶-凝胶法与氮诱导相结合，合成了一种新型的0D / 2D TiO ₂ /高岭土复合材料，该复合材料具有氧空位和表面缺陷位。以环丙沙星（CIP）为主要目标有机污染物，研究了合成催化剂的光催化性能。结果表明，氮气处理后的TiO ₂/高岭土复合材料在宽辐射光谱（200-800 nm）内表现出改善的降解性能，用于吸附-光催化消除CIP。合成的复合材料表现出增强的反应速率常数，比裸TiO _2的反应速率常数高7.0倍，2.54倍和3.13倍分别在紫外线，太阳能和可见光下用空气处理。此外，新制备的复合材料还表现出在紫外线和可见光下对甲醛去除的显着增强。自由基清除剂实验和ESR结果表明，在降解系统中，空穴应是广谱中的主要氧化物质。氮处理复合材料活性的提高主要归因于诱导的氧空位以及TiO ₂之间的紧密界面接触和高岭石，导致较小的晶粒尺寸，更高的光吸收能力和更快的载流子分离效率。预计这种基于天然矿物质的高效复合光催化剂将有望在广泛的辐射光谱范围内消除药物和个人护理产品以及挥发性有机化合物。