Ag-loaded TiO2/reduced graphene oxide nanocomposites for enhanced visible-light photocatalytic activity

Abstract

In this work, Ag nanoparticles were loaded by chemical reduction onto TiO2 P25 under different loadings ranging from 1 up to 4wt% and hydrothermally deposited on reduced graphene oxide sheets. Chemical reduction was determined to be an effective preparation approach for Ag attachment to titania, leading to the formation of small silver nanoparticles with an average diameter of 4.2nm. The photocatalytic performance of the hybrid nanocomposite materials was evaluated via methylene blue (MB) dye removal under visible-light irradiation. The rate of dye decolorization was found to depend on the metal loading, showing an increase till a threshold value of 3wt%, above which the rate drops. Next, the as prepared sample of TiO2/Ag of better photocatalytic response, i.e., at a 3wt% loading value, was hydrothermally deposited on a platform of reduced graphene oxide (rGO) of tunable content (mass ratio). TiO2/Ag/rGO coupled nanocomposite presented significantly enhanced photocatalytic activity compared to the TiO2/Ag, TiO2/rGO composites and bare P25 titania semiconductor photocatalysts. In particular, after 45min of irradiation almost complete decolorization of the dye was observed for the TiO2/Ag/rGO nanocatalyst, while the respective removal efficiency was 92% for TiO2/Ag, 93% for TiO2/rGO and only 80% for the bare TiO2 nanoparticles. This simple step by step preparation strategy allows for optimum exploitation of the advanced properties of metal plasmonic effect and reduced graphene oxide as the critical host for boosting the overall photocatalytic activity towards visible-light.