Photocatalytic Degradation of Organic Dyes with Hierarchical Ag2O/ZnO Heterostructures

In this paper, Ag2O/ZnO heterostructures with excellent photocatalytic activities were prepared successfully by a straightforward two-step approach. For the as-prepared hybrid heterostructure, Ag2O nanoparticles assembled uniformly on the surface of ZnO microflowers. A possible growth mechanism for hierarchical Ag2O/ZnO heterostructure is proposed based on the experimental results. Photocatalytic degradation results showed that the hybrid heterostructures possess superior degradation efficiencies of methyl orange (MO) than methylene blue (MB) and Rhodamine B (RhB) under simulated sunlight irradiation. Besides, degradation efficiencies of different photocatalysts (Ag2O nanoparticles and ZnO microflowers) to MO were also investigated, revealing that the composite photocatalyst exhibit enhanced photocatalytic activity. The photocatalytic recycle tests showed that the as-synthesized products were stable and could be used repeatedly after five times. The reported Ag2O/ZnO products may be promising photocatalyst candidates in waste water purification.