Abstract
V2O5powders modified with different theoretical silver contents (1, 5, 10, 15, and 20 wt% as Ag2O) were obtained with acicular morphologies observed by scanning electron microscopy (SEM). Shcherbinaite crystalline phase is transformed into the Ag0.33V2O5crystalline one with the incorporation and increase in silver content as was suggested by X-ray diffraction (XRD) and X-ray photoelectron spectroscopy (XPS) analysis. With further increase in silver contents the Ag2O phase appears. Catalysts were active in photocatalytic degradation of malachite green dye under simulated solar light, which is one of the most remarkable facts of this work. It was found that V2O5-20Ag was the most active catalytic formulation and its activity was attributed to the mixture of coupled semiconductors that promotes the slight decrease in the rate of the electron-hole pair recombination.
Highlights
In recent years, wastewaters from domestic and industrial uses have contributed to the environmental problem because they arrive to the soil and aquifers mantles polluting clean water
To confirm if the organic material was removed after the thermal treatment, infrared spectra (IR) spectra of V2O5-xAg photocatalysts, before and after the thermal treatment, were compared; the results will be discussed later
Ag-modified photocatalysts were obtained in an easy way with acicular morphologies and enhanced specific surface areas
Summary
Wastewaters from domestic and industrial uses have contributed to the environmental problem because they arrive to the soil and aquifers mantles polluting clean water. Some unstable materials with reduced band gap energy are Fe2O3 (2.3 eV), GaP (2.23 eV), and GaAs (1.4 eV) that are not so good as photocatalysts to degrade organic compounds in aqueous solutions [12] It has been reported before by some researchers that one of the materials with low band gap energy, of around 2.8 eV, and some stability in aqueous solutions is the V2O5-based photocatalysts [13], potentially active under irradiation with visible light and investigated in the last years [14,15,16,17]. Other researchers to solve this fact in photocatalysts with low band gap energy have reported that adding a small amount of noble metals (such as Pt, Ag, and Pd) [28,29,30] could retard the recombination of the electron-hole pair and increase the photocatalytic activity of the V2O5. The main purpose was to obtain catalytic formulations based in V2O5-xAg that could be photoactive to degrade organic compounds contained in water under simulated solar light
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