Ultrafine Ag@AgI nanoparticles on cube single-crystal Ag3PO4 (100): An all-day-active Z-Scheme photocatalyst for environmental purification

摘要

Exploring and designing an efficient and robust photocatalyst toward the degradation of organic pollutants under nature sunlight irradiation is a challenging research topic. The ability to maintain the photo catalytic activity in the entire daytime will be the ultimate goal for further widespread application of solar energy-driven semiconductor photocatalysis. Here, an all-day-active Z-scheme photocatalytic system is reported by employing Ag@AgI nanoparticles decorated Ag3PO4 cubes (C-Ag3PO4@Ag@Agl). By coupling the pronounced carrier separation as well as increased stability, the C-Ag3PO4@Ag@Agl is capable of performing efficient Rhodamine B (RhB) and bisphenol A (BPA) degradation under sunlight irradiation, and still persist noticeable activity when the light is very weak. The RhB (20 mg/L, 50 mL) can be completely degraded by C-Ag3PO4@Ag@Agl (30 mg) within 1 h with the average luminous power of 117.5 mW (3.14 cm(2)). Dramatically, the as-prepared samples can still maintain photocatalytic activity even in a cloudy day (0.2-6.7 mW). This work has offered a valuable concept of continuous pollutant removal under nature sunlight irradiation in the entire daytime, which may serve as a model system for the wide environment applications, such as the removal of low-level pollutants under weak light irradiation. (C) 2018 Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.