Coupling system of silver carbonate nanoparticles and bismuth oxyiodide nanosheets with enhanced photocatalytic properties

Abstract

In this work, silver carbonate nanoparticles and BiOI nanosheets have been prepared separately and binary Ag2CO3/BiOI composite are synthesized via a facile solvo thermal method. The as-prepared materials have been well characterized using techniques covering X-ray diffraction (XRD), energy dispersive X-ray spectroscopy (EDX), transmission electron microscopy (TEM), High-resolution transmission electron microscopy (HRTEM), ultraviolet-visible (UV-vis) diffuse reflectance spectroscopy, X-ray photoelectron spectroscopy (XPS), Photoluminescence (PL) emission spectroscopy. The photocatalytic activity of the as-synthesized materials has been evaluated for degrading various model pollutants (methyl orange, phenol and p-nitroaniline). It has been found that the incorporation of co-catalyst BiOI could promote the catalytic activity of Ag2CO3 and suppress the serious photocorrosion of Ag2CO3. Thus the Ag2CO3/BiOI composite showed excellent catalytic recycling stability. Moreover, the underlying mechanism has been investigated through radical trapping experiments. The results demonstrate that photoinduced holes are the main active species. The improvement in activity of Ag2CO3/BiOI could be attributed to the charge transfer between the heterojunction. Also, its good stability and reusability establish its promising potential for catalytic applications.