Facile synthesis of heterostructured YVO4/g-C3N4/Ag photocatalysts with enhanced visible-light photocatalytic performance

Abstract

A series of YVO4/g-C3N4/Ag composite photocatalysts with various concentrations of YVO4 (YVO4/g-C3N4/Ag) were synthesized for the first time by hydrothermal and the photodeposition method. The photocatalytic activity of the as-prepared YVO4/g-C3N4/Ag composites was evaluated by the degradation of methyl orange (MO) under visible light irradiation. It shows that the photocatalytic activity of g-C3N4 can be largely enhanced by loading Ag nanoparticles (NPs) and YVO4 NPs together. The optimized loading content of YVO4 is 35wt%, and the highest rate constant shown in 35wt% YVO4/g-C3N4/Ag is 0.03404min−1, about 3 times and 2.1 times higher than that in g-C3N4 (0.01131min−1) and g-C3N4/Ag (0.01613min−1), respectively. The surface plasmon resonance (SPR) of Ag NPs and efficiently suppressed recombination of charge carriers due to the introduction of YVO4 NPs make the YVO4/g-C3N4/Ag nanocomposite photocatalysts exhibit excellent visible photocatalytic performance and excellent photocatalytic stability. In addition, the trapping experiments using different scavengers showed that the reactive O2 and OH play the major role in the photodegradation of MO.