Plasmon-enhanced photocatalytic properties of nano Ag@AgBr on single-crystalline octahedral Cu2O (111) microcrystals composite photocatalyst

A new composite photocatalyst Ag@AgBr/Cu2O was prepared by loading Ag@AgBr on (1 1 1) facts of octahedral Cu2O substrate via a facile precipitation in situ photoreduction method and characterized by X-ray diffraction (XRD), scanning electron microscopy (SEM), transmission electron microscopy (TEM), energy dispersive X-ray spectroscopy (EDX), ultraviolet-visible diffuse reflectance spectroscopy (UV-vis), nitrogen sorption and the photoelectrochemical measurements. The results show that Ag@AgBr nanoparticles are well-dispersed on Cu2O nanoparticles with narrow size distributions and controllable sizes from 10 to 30 nm. TEM results of the as-synthesized Ag@AgBr/Cu2O nanocomposite revealed that Ag@AgBr nanoparticles were attached to the surface of octahedral Cu2O. Photocatalytic degradation of methylene blue (MB) was carried out to evaluate the photocatalytic activity of Ag@AgBr/Cu2O under visible-light irradiation. The Ag@AgBr/Cu2O composite showed stronger visible light absorption capacity and higher photocatalytic activity than pure Cu2O. The Ag@AgBr (15 wt.%)/Cu2O sample presented the best photocatalytic activity, degrading 93.28% MB after irradiation for 90 min, due to their high surface area (18.499 m(2) g(-1)), the Crystal effect of Cu2O and surface plasmon resonance of Ag NPs. Meanwhile, phenol was degraded to further prove the degradation ability of Ag@AgBr/Cu2O. In addition, the quenching effect was examined in the photocatalytic reaction process of MB. Active h(+), Br-0 and the resulting center dot O-2(-) played the major roles for the dye degradation, while (OH)-O-center dot was verified to be insignificant. Based on the experimental results, a photocatalytic mechanism for organics degradation over Ag@AgBr/Cu2O photocatalysts was proposed. The electronic interactions were systematically studied and confirmed by the photoelectrochemical measurements. (C) 2015 Elsevier BY. All rights reserved.