A novel ternary CuO decorated Ag3AsO4/GO hybrid as a Z-scheme photocatalyst for enhanced degradation of phenol under visible light

A novel CuO decorated Ag3AsO4/GO (CuO/Ag3AsO4/GO) ternary hybrid system is fabricated by an electrostatically-driven assembly method. The CuO nanostructure is obtained from a nano-coordination polymer by a facile solid-state transformation route. The prepared CuO/Ag3AsO4/GO hybrid shows a well-defined crystalline structure, where nanosized CuO particles (20 nm) are decorated on Ag3AsO4 spheres (150 nm) and further distributed on the GO sheets. The prepared CuO/Ag3AsO4/GO hybrid is characterized by PXRD, FT-IR, XPS, EDX, TEM, HRTEM, FESEM, UV-Vis DRS, BET and PL measurements. The CuO/Ag3AsO4/GO hybrid exhibits improvement in the visible light photodegradation of phenol compared to the CuO/Ag3AsO4 or Ag3AsO4/GO hybrid. The higher catalytic activity of the material can be ascribed to an increase in light harvesting, effective electron-hole separation and high surface area of the material. Furthermore, the CuO/Ag3AsO4/GO photocatalyst exhibits excellent photo-stability and reusability for more than five successive cycles signifying its potential applications in wastewater treatment. Interestingly, a Z-scheme type photocatalytic mechanism is proposed for the CuO/Ag3AsO4/GO hybrid under visible light.