Study on visible-light photocatalytic activity of g-C3N4 modified by trace Ag3PO4

Abstract

Novel polymeric Ag3PO4/g-C3N4 photocatalysts modified by trace Ag3PO4 are prepared via a facile method. The obtained Ag3PO4/g-C3N4 composite products are characterized by X-ray diffraction (XRD), Fourier Transform Infrared Spectroscopy (FT-IR), transmission electron microscopy (TEM), scanning electron microscopy (SEM), X-ray photoelectron spectroscopy (XPS), UV-vis diffuse reflection spectroscopy (DRS), and photoluminescence spectroscopy (PL). The photocatalytic activities of Ag3PO4/g-C3N4 samples are investigated by evaluating the decomposition of methyl orange (MO) under visible light irradiation. The results reveal that the polymeric material is doped by Ag3PO4, and the Ag3PO4 doping can hardly affect the crystallinity of the as-prepared g-C3N4 materials, but it improves greatly their visible light absorption and separation efficiency of photogenerated electron/hole pairs. The Ag3PO4/g-C3N4 photocatalysts exhibits significantly enhanced photocatalytic performance.

Keywords

• catalytic chemistry
• photocatalyst
• Ag3PO4
• g-C3N4
• modification
• photocatalysis