Photocatalytic Performance and Mechanism Research of Ag/HSTiO2 on Degradation of Methyl Orange

The Sol-gel method is successfully used to prepare high specific surface area TiO2 (HSTiO2). Then, the photodeposition method is used to composite silver particles with HSTiO2. X-ray diffraction, scanning electron microscopy, transmission electron microscopy, Brunauer-Emmett-Teller, and UV-vis spectroscopy are used to characterize the Ag/HSTiO2 nanocomposites. It can be concluded that the prepared TiO2 has a large specific surface area, reaching 125.5 m(2) g(-1). Additionally, the addition of silver particles successfully broadens the photoresponse range from the UV region to the visible light region. In order to evaluate the photocatalytic activity of Ag/HSTiO2, we conducted the methyl orange degradation test. The results showed that the photocatalytic activity of the sample is significantly higher than that of pure TiO2.