The effective photocatalysis and antibacterial properties of AgBr/Ag₂MoO₄@ZnO composites under visible light irradiation

Abstract

A novel Z-scheme AgBr/Ag₂MoO₄@ZnO photocatalyst was fabricated via a hydrothermal process and in situ growth method. X-ray powder diffraction, scanning electron microscopy and transmission electron microscopy were used to determine the structure of the photocatalyst. The results showed that the composites were tightly connected by the (101) lattice plane of ZnO, the (222) plane of Ag₂MoO₄ and the (200) lattice plane of AgBr. Because of the strong redox activity and good separability of photoelectrons and holes induced by the Z-scheme structure, the photodegradation rate for ciprofloxacin (CIP) solution was 80.5% by the photocatalysis of 0.5 AgBr/Ag₂MoO₄@ZnO. In addition, more than 99.999% of Escherichia coli, Staphylococcus aureus, and Pseudomonas aeruginosa cells were killed within 60 min. These results demonstrate that AgBr/Ag₂MoO₄@ZnO is a promising photocatalyst, which can be used in organic pollutant degradation and the photocatalytic antibacterial area.

Keywords:

• Photocatalytic activity
• organic pollutants
• ciprofloxacin
• antibacterial

Acknowledgements

In addition, the authors would like to thank Professor Chen Zhuoyuan (Institute of Oceanography, Chinese Academy of Sciences) for his guidance on the revision of the manuscript.

Disclosure statement

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

Additional information

Funding

This work was supported by the National Natural Science Foundation of China [grant numbers 41376003 and 41006054], the Strategic Priority Research Program of the Chinese Academy of Sciences [grant number XDA13040405], and the National Basic Research Program of China [2014CB643304].