Oxidative degradation of methylene blue by Ag₂O@g-C₃N₄ photocatalysts under visible light

Abstract

Ag₂O@g-C₃N₄ catalysts with p-n heterostructure were prepared by the hydrothermal method. The catalysts were characterized by X-ray diffraction (XRD), transmission electron microscopy (TEM), X-ray photoelectric spectroscopy, and UV/visible light spectroscopy. Ag₂O nanoparticles were uniformly distributed on the surface of g-C₃N₄ and a heterostructure was formed. The sample Ag₂O@g-C₃N₄ degraded methylene blue (MB) dye by visible light, which showed that it had good photocatalytic activity. Under the same catalytic conditions, the catalytic efficiency of Ag₂O@g-C₃N₄ is two times higher than that of pure g-C₃N₄. The improvement in catalytic efficiency is due to the formation of heterostructure between Ag₂O and g-C₃N₄, which greatly reduces the recombination rate of electrons and holes. At the same time, Ag is a good electron trapping agent, which increases the mobility of electrons and holes and inhibits the photoetching of Ag₂O. Finally, the photocatalytic principle of Ag₂O@ g-C₃N₄ was analyzed for its excellent photocatalytic performance.

Keywords:

• Ag₂O@g-C₃N₄
• hydrothermal method
• p-n heterojunction
• visible light catalysts

Author contributions

Jianhua Wang as corresponding author: Conceptualization, Methodology, Software, Data curation, Writing- Original draft preparation, Validation, Writing- Reviewing and Editing, Funding acquisition.

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).

Additional information

Funding

This project was founded by the Liaoning Natural Science Foundation [Nos. 2020-Ms-306].