Intimately coupled photocatalysis and biodegradation (ICPB) provides novel insights into the removal of refractory pollutants. However, the practical application of ICPB was limited by low bacterial loading density and low microbial activity. Herein, an environment-friendly, low-cost and renewable biocarrier was fabricated using natural loofah sponge. In comparison to polyurethane carrier, after employing loofah sponge in ICPB, the tetracycline hydrochloride (TCH) removal rate was increased by ∼6.6 %, the mineralization was increased by ∼9.2 %, and almost all photocatalytic products were degraded. Compared with conventional catalyst coating strategies, our powder spraying method enables the exterior surface of biocarrier to be firmly coated by the photocatalyst, while the inside of biocarrier was extremely clean to accumulate bacteria. The biocarrier provided a higher loading density and a higher microbial activity of bacteria than that of polyurethane carrier. Besides, it can regulate the bacterial community to have more favorable members to biodegrade the photocatalysis intermediates. In summary, using loofah sponge as biocarrier could be an effective approach for enhancing the biodegradation performance of ICPB.

紧密耦合的光催化和生物降解（ICPB）为去除难处理污染物提供了新颖的见解。但是，ICPB的实际应用受到细菌载量密度低和微生物活性低的限制。本文中，使用天然丝瓜络海绵制造了环保，低成本和可再生的生物载体。与聚氨酯载体相比，在ICPB中使用丝瓜海绵后，盐酸盐四环素（TCH）的去除率增加了约6.6％，矿化作用增加了约9.2％，几乎所有的光催化产物都被降解了。与传统的催化剂涂覆策略相比，我们的粉末喷涂方法使生物载体的外表面能够被光催化剂牢固地涂覆，而生物载体的内部却非常清洁，可以积累细菌。该生物载体提供了比聚氨酯载体更高的负载密度和更高的细菌微生物活性。此外，它可以调节细菌群落以具有更有利的成员来生物降解光催化中间体。总之，使用丝瓜络海绵作为生物载体可能是提高ICPB生物降解性能的有效方法。