Enhanced Visible-Light-Driven Photodegradation of Rhodamine B over Ag2C2O4/Bi2MoO6 Nanocomposites

Abstract

In the present work, Ag2C2O4/Bi2MoO6 nanocomposites containing different weight contents of Ag2C2O4 were prepared by a deposition-precipitation method. The products were characterized by X-ray diffraction (XRD), scanning electron microscopy (SEM), transmission electron microscopy (TEM), high-resolution transmission electron microscopy (HRTEM), and selected area electron diffraction (SAED). They revealed the presence of good crystalline monoclinic Ag2C2O4 nanoparticles distributed on orthorhombic Bi2MoO6 square nanoplates. The photocatalytic properties of Bi2MoO6 and Ag2C2O4/Bi2MoO6 samples were investigated by photodegradation of rhodamine B (RhB) under visible light irradiation. In this research, 10 wt% Ag2C2O4/Bi2MoO6 nanocomposites have the highest photocatalytic performance of 78.84 % within 100 min under visible light irradiation, higher than the photocatalytic performance of pure Bi2MoO6. A photocatalytic mechanism of Ag2C2O4/Bi2MoO6 nanocomposites was also discussed according to the experimental results.

Keywords

• heterostructure nanocomposites
• photocatalysis
• spectroscopy
• electron microscopy