Detection and removal of contaminants are significant for environmental monitoring and remediation. In the present study, “two-in-one” silicon nanoparticles (SiNPs) were designed and prepared to simultaneously act as the fluorescent probe and degradation catalyst to detect and remove tetracycline (TCs) antibiotics. Thiourea and 3-aminopropyltrimethoxysilane were dopant and silicon source to generate fluorescent sulfur and nitrogen co-doped SiNPs (SN-SiNPs). The blue fluorescence of SN-SiNPs was selectively quenched by TCs due to the inner filter effect, whilst accompanied by the newly appeared yellow-green fluorescence resulting from aggregation induced fluorescence emission effect. Based on this phenomenon, SN-SiNPs can be used as fluorescent colorimetric probes for detection of doxycycline, oxytetracycline and tetracycline with limits of detection of 1.8 μg/L, 3.0 μg/L and 4.2 μg/L, respectively; the semi-quantitation can even be visually achieved by naked eyes. Particularly, SN-SiNPs were capable to catalyze the degradation of the three TCs effectively, achieving the removal rates of doxycycline, oxytetracycline and tetracycline of >90 %, >80 % and > 70 % after 240 min exposure to UV light. The catalytic ability of SN-SiNPs was derived from hydroxyl radical (•OH⁻), superoxide radical (•O₂⁻) and singlet oxygen (¹O₂) produced by SN-SiNPs under UV irradiation. Moreover, integrating the fluorescent probe and photocatalyst together, the proposed SN-SiNPs simultaneously realized catalyzing the degradation of the three TCs and in-situ visually monitoring of the degradation process in real time. This study innovatively proposed an integrated probe for the detection and catalytic degradation of TCs, providing a new “two-in-one” strategy for rapid and simple detection and removal of drug pollutants.

污染物的检测和去除对于环境监测和修复具有重要意义。在本研究中，设计和制备了“二合一”硅纳米粒子（SiNPs），同时作为荧光探针和降解催化剂，检测和去除四环素（TCs）抗生素。硫脲和 3-氨基丙基三甲氧基硅烷是掺杂剂和硅源以产生荧光硫和氮共掺杂的 SiNPs (SN-SiNPs)。SN-SiNPs的蓝色荧光由于内部过滤效应而被TCs选择性猝灭，同时伴随着由聚集诱导的荧光发射效应产生的新出现的黄绿色荧光。基于这一现象，SN-SiNPs可以作为荧光比色探针用于检测强力霉素，土霉素和四环素的检测限分别为 1.8 μg/L、3.0 μg/L 和 4.2 μg/L；半定量甚至可以通过肉眼目测实现。特别是，SN-SiNPs能够有效催化三种TCs的降解，在紫外光照射240分钟后，多西环素、土霉素和四环素的去除率分别为>90%、>80%和>70%。SN-SiNPs 的催化能力来源于羟基自由基 (•OH⁻ )、超氧自由基 (•O ₂ ⁻ ) 和单线态氧 ( ¹ O ₂ ) 由 SN-SiNPs 在紫外线照射下产生。此外，将荧光探针和光催化剂集成在一起，所提出的SN-SiNPs同时实现了催化三种TCs的降解和实时原位视觉监测降解过程。本研究创新性地提出了一种用于TCs检测和催化降解的集成探针，为快速简便地检测和去除药物污染物提供了一种新的“二合一”策略。