Synthesis of Ag/AgCl hollow spheres based on the Cu2O nanospheres as template and their excellent photocatalytic property

Abstract

A kind of Ag/AgCl hollow spheres were synthesized with the assist of Cu2O nanospheres via simple chemical methods The Cu2O nanospheres were used for template as well as raw material. The FeCl3 aqueous solution, as the Cl− and weak acid environment provider, was played an important role in the removal of Cu2O template and the formation of Ag/AgCl hollow spheres. The X-ray diffraction (XRD), scanning electron microscopy (SEM), transmission electron microscopy (TEM), high-resolution transmission electron microscopy (HRTEM), Brunauer-Emmett-Teller (BET), photoluminescence emission spectra (PL), ultraviolet-visible diffuse reflectance spectra (UV-vis DRS) and transient photocurrents were employed to investigated the crystal structures, morphologies, specific surface area and optical property of the samples. The experiment results confirmed that the harvest of visible light and separation efficiency of electron-hole pairs were enhanced significantly owing to the large specific surface area and porous structure of hollow spheres. In comparison with common Ag/AgCl, the as-prepared Ag/AgCl hollow spheres exhibited excellent photocatalytic activity on the degradation for rhodamineB (RhB), methyl orange (MO), methylene blue (MB) oxytetracycline (OTC) and tetracycline (TC) under visible light irradiation (λ>420nm). The possible photocatalytic mechanism was also proposed on the basis of trapping experiment.