Synthesis of highly dispersed silver doped g-C3N4 nanocomposites with enhanced visible-light photocatalytic activity

In present work, Ag nanoparticles were homogeneously dispersed on g-C3N4 utilizing photo-deposition technique to synthesize Ag/g-C3N4 nanocomposites having different percentages of Ag contents (0-5%). XRD and FT-IR confirmed the graphitic structures of g-C3N4 and Ag/g-C3N4. Results of XPS studies revealed the presence of metallic Ag on g-C3N4. TEM images reflect the homogeneous dispersion of Ag nanoparticles (similar to 15 +/- 5) on the surface of g-C3N4. The photocatalytic activities were evaluated by photocatalytic oxidation of methylene blue (MB) under visible light illumination. 0.5% Ag/g-C3N4 exhibited the highest photodegradation rate which was almost two times higher than that of pure g-C3N4. Photodegradation performance for exploiting MB was slightly decreased after five repeated cycles under visible light showing the highly stable nature of designed nanocomposites. (C) 2016 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.