Preparation, characterization, and photocatalytic activity of novel AgBr/ZIF-8 composites for water purification

Abstract

A highly efficient photocatalyst, AgBr coupled zeolitic imidazolate framework-8 (AgBr/ZIF-8) hybrid, was prepared for photocatalytic degradation of dyes under illumination of visible light. The hybrid structure of AgBr and ZIF-8 was confirmed via X-ray diffraction (XRD). Meanwhile, metal Ag was also detected via X-ray photoelectron spectroscopy (XPS), indicating that the real composition of the complex is Ag-AgBr-ZIF-8. N2-adsorption, UV–visible diffuse reflection spectroscopy (DRS), transient photocurrent (PC), electrochemical impedance spectroscopy (EIS) and linear sweep voltammetry (LSV) analyses were performed to reveal the influence of the added AgBr on the specific surface area, charge separation efficiency and optical property of ZIF-8. Results indicated that the photoabsorption performance and the specific surface area of the AgBr/ZIF-8 composite are between that of pure AgBr and ZIF-8. Nevertheless, the synergy of ZIF-8 and AgBr in separating electrons and holes was observed, which induced significantly improved efficiency in charge separation, and subsequently resulted in the enhanced photoactivity of the AgBr/ZIF-8 composite. The performance evaluation demonstrated that the optimized AgBr/ZIF-8 presented a methylene blue (MB) degradation rate of 0.0273 min−1, which was 3.59 times as high as that of AgBr. Additionally, the composite also worked well in photocatalytic decomposition of methyl orange (MO) and rhodamine B(RhB) under visible light. The degradation efficiency reached to 99.5% under visible light irradiation for 60 min. This work provides a hybrid photocatalyst with high efficiency, and may shed some light on the application of MOF-based composite in photocatalytic field.