Boosting visible light response and charge separation by plasmonic Ag and TiO2 modification of Ag3VO4 for degradation of pollutants

The formation of heterojunction structures of semiconductors is one of the most important techniques to increase the photocatalytic efficiency of a photocatalyst. In this paper, Ag/Ag3VO4/TiO2 as a visible light response photocatalyst was prepared easily by a three step process including hydrothermal, precipitation and photoreduction. The Ag/Ag3VO4/TiO2 nanocomposites demonstrated clearly increased visible light absorption and photocatalytic efficiency in degradation of Rhodamine B. The degradation yield of Rhodamine B was detected 97.3% in 45 min under visible light. Compared with Ag3VO4, TiO2 and Ag3VO4/TiO2, Ag/Ag3VO4/TiO2 exhibited the highest efficiency owing to synergetic effect between Ag3VO4 and TiO2 and surface plasmon resonance effect of Ag nanoparticles. So, the Ag/Ag3VO4/TiO2 can be effectively used as an active photocatalyst under visible light and it depicts an ideal potential in elimination organic pollutants.