Facile construction of novel Ag₂O combined TiO₂ nanocomposites with enhanced dye degradation under visible-light photocatalytic activity

ABSTRACT

The Ag₂O/TiO₂ composite photocatalysts (PCs) were synthesised in a facile manner into applied photocatalytic decomposition of methylene blue (MB) dye under visible-light treatment. Then, physicochemical belongings of as-fabricated PCs were analytically categorised by powder XRD, FT-IR, HRSEM with an EDXS, HRTEM, UV-Vis DRS and PL spectroscopy. Associated with the pristine TiO₂ and Ag₂O, the united Ag₂O/TiO₂ NC exposed greater photo-decomposition actions (~95.4%) in MB dye under visible-light treatment. The photo-degradation rate constant of Ag₂O/TiO₂ heterostructured composite was about 0.03504 min⁻¹, which is almost 1.8 and 1.2 times superior to pristine TiO₂ and Ag₂O NPs, individually. Besides, the as-fabricated Ag₂O/TiO₂ NC exhibits high reutilising stability for the next five consecutive consumptions. Hence it proposes that the liability for strong visible-light fascination capacity, narrow bandgap, effectual separation and hindered the recombination of photo-excited electron-hole (e⁻/h⁺) pairs by the construction of greatly dispersed Ag₂O NPs.

KEYWORDS:

• TiO₂/ag₂o
• photocatalysts
• dye degradation
• nanocomposites
• visible-light
• charge separation

Declaration

The authors have declared no conflict of interest.

Disclosure of potential conflicts of interest

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