Facile construction of novel Ag<sub>2</sub>O combined TiO<sub>2</sub> nanocomposites with enhanced dye degradation under visible-light photocatalytic activity
S. Kavitha, R. Ranjith, N. Jayamani
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.