Silver-decorated orthophosphate@bismuth molybdate heterostructure: An efficient photocatalyst with two visible-light active components

In this paper, decorating Ag3PO4/Bi2MoO6 heterostructures with uniformly dispersed ultrafine Ag nanoparticles are obtained by a combination of solvothermal technique, deposition-precipitation method and in situ photoreduction process. Two visible-light active components (Ag3PO4, Bi2MoO6) and the electron-transfer system (Ag) are spatially fixed in this heterostructures system. The photocatalytic studies revealed that the heterostructures system exhibits enhanced photocatalytic activity than the Bi2MoO6 and Ag3PO4/Bi2MoO6 heterostructures under visible light. The enhanced photocatalytic activity can be attributed to the effective separation of photogenerated carriers driven by the matching band potentials between Ag3PO4 and Bi2MoO6, as well as the good electron trapping role of Ag nanoparticles in situ formed on the surfaces of Ag3PO4 particles during the photocatalytic reaction. (C) 2015 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.