Abstract
Water pollution caused by dye wastewater is a potential threat to human health. Using photocatalysis technology to deal with dye wastewater has the advantages of strong purification and no secondary pollution, so it is greatly significant to look for new visible-light photocatalysts with high photocatalytic ability for dye wastewater degradation. Semiconductor photocatalyst silver phosphate (Ag3PO4) has high quantum efficiency and photocatalytic degradation activity. However, Ag3PO4 is prone to photoelectron corrosion and becomes unstable during photocatalysis, which severely limits its application in this field. In this study, a tubelike g-C3N4/Ag3PO4 heterojunction was constructed by the chemical precipitation method. An Ag3PO4 nanoparticle was loaded onto the surface of the tubelike g-C3N4, forming close contact. The photocatalytic activity of the photocatalyst was evaluated by the degradation of RhB under visible-light irradiation. The tubelike g-C3N4/Ag3PO4-5% heterojunction exhibited optimal photocatalytic performance. In an optimal process, the degradation rate of the RhB is 90% under visible-light irradiation for 40 min. The recycling experiment showed that there was no apparent decrease in the activity of tubelike g-C3N4/Ag3PO4-5% heterojunction after five consecutive runs. A possible Z-type mechanism is proposed to explain the high activity and stability of the heterojunction.
Highlights
With the rapid development of modern industry, the problem of water pollution is becoming increasingly serious, as it could harm human health [1–4]
The tubelike g-C3N4/ Ag3PO4 heterojunction was prepared by chemical precipitation
The kinetic constant of RhB degradation with TCN/Ag3PO4-5% (0.0077 min−1) was about 5.9 and 3.8 times as high as that of TCN (0.0013 min−1) and Ag3PO4 (0.0020 min−1), respectively. This result shows that the formation of the TCN/Ag3PO4 heterojunction could efficiently enhance the photocatalytic performances of Ag3PO4
Summary
With the rapid development of modern industry, the problem of water pollution is becoming increasingly serious, as it could harm human health [1–4]. Semiconductor photocatalysis technology can transform solar into chemical energy and completely decompose organic matter under mild conditions. It shows great potential and good application prospects in solving environmental pollution and energy shortage [5,6]. Various semiconductor photocatalysts, including TiO2, ZnO, and SnO2, were studied [7–10] These conventional photocatalytic materials still have many problems, such as photocatalytic activity only under ultraviolet light, electron-hole recombination, and potential toxicity, which are primary obstacles to further application. Thereby, it is greatly significant to explore photocatalysts with high visible-light activity for the application of semiconductor photocatalysis. Many semiconductor photocatalysts, including TiO2, SnO2, g-C3N4, SrTiO3 were used to couple with Ag3PO4 to fabricate heterojunction photocatalysts [22–25] These heterojunctions showed excellent catalytic performance and stability. The electron transfer mechanism of the tubelike g-C3N4/Ag3PO4 heterojunction in the degradation of RhB under visible-light irradiation was studied
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