Visible light photocatalysis enhancement by Ag3PO4 decorated with RuO2 nanoparticles

Abstract

In this study, we employed the precipitation method to synthesize nanoparticles of silver phosphate doped with ruthenium, utilizing synthesized silver phosphate and ruthenium trichloride trihydrate as precursors. The investigation of structural, chemical, and morphological characteristics was conducted through X-ray diffraction, X-ray photoelectron spectroscopy, scanning electron microscopy, transmission electron microscopy, and photoluminescence spectroscopy. The degradation of the methylene blue dye in aqueous solutions at room temperature was catalyzed by the synthesized ruthenium-doped silver phosphate nanoparticles. When the process was conducted without the photocatalyst or light, the photodegradation of dyes was minimal. The photocatalytic activity of ruthenium-doped silver phosphate nanoparticles was assessed and contrasted with that of its control counterpart, pure silver phosphate. The obtained ruthenium-doped silver phosphate nanoparticles exhibit a significant improvement in dye degradation rate, compared to pure silver phosphate, which is evidenced by the increased visible light absorption brought on by the presence of ruthenium in silver phosphate crystallite sites, which produced well-separated photo-generated electron and hole pairs when illuminated by visible light.