Two types of novel municipal sewage sludge (SS) combined TiO
2
photocatalysts (ST
1
and ST
2
) were synthesized through calcination treatment under different atmospheres (air and N
2
). The morphology, structure, and chemical states of photocatalysts were characterized by SEM, XRD, EDS, FT-IR, Raman UV–Vis, BET, and TG-IR. The results showed that ST
2
consisted of a mesoporous graphene-like structure (20.02 nm) displayed exhibited better visible light photocatalytic performances and the highest BET surface area and pore volume (92.97 m
2
g
−1
and 0.46 cm
3
/g). The doping of Carbon and transition metals (Al, Mg) in TiO
2
strengthened visible-light response by lowering the band gap. The photocatalytic ability is evaluated in the degradation of tetracycline, which is a typical antibiotic in the aquatic environment. The ST
2
photocatalytic efficiency under visible light than that of ST
1
and TiO
2
. The enhancement is formed together by porous surface and lower band gap of ST
2
, which could offer more active sites and facilitate faster electron-hole pair separation. In addition, the sludge-TiO
2
calcination in N
2
(ST
2
) has the potential to reduce CO
2
emission while recovering more energy from the sludge, which turned out to be a more cost-effective way to reutilization of sewage sludge compared with that of calcination in air.
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