The synthesis of Ag/AgCl/BiFeO3 photocatalyst with enhanced visible photocatalytic activity

A novel AgCl/Ag/BiFeO3 photocatalyst was synthesized via an ultrasonic-assisted precipitation-photo reduction method. X-ray diffraction (XRD), scanning electron microscopy (SEM), transmission electron microscopy (TEM), High Resolution Transmission Electron Microscopy (HRTEM), UV-vis diffuse reflectance spectroscopy (DRS) and photoluminescence emission spectra (PL) analysis were implemented to characterize the composition, morphology, structure, and optical property of the as-synthesized photocatalyst. For the decomposition of methyl orange (MO) and other organic dyes, AgCl/Ag/BiFeO3 photocatalyst manifested much superior visible-light catalytic activity than pure BiFeO3 and AgCl/Ag. Based on the trapping experiments and band structure analysis, a probable Z-scheme light catalytic mechanism was proposed. (C) 2016 Elsevier Ltd and Techna Group S.r.l. All rights reserved.