Sonication-assisted synthesis of Ag@AgCl and Ag@AgCl-GO and their photocatalytic performances

In this paper, we report a facile, inexpensive, and ecofriendly synthesis of Ag@AgCl immobilized graphene oxide (GO) nanocomposite using mustard pod extract (MPE). The organic functional groups present in the phytochemicals of MPE play an important role in the formation of Ag@AgCl NPs and the conju-gation of GO with Ag@AgCl NPs. In order to investigate size, morphology, composition, and stability, the detailed characterization was carried out using SEM, FE-SEM, EDX, HR-TEM, STEM, BET, elemental mapping X-ray diffraction, FTIR, UV-visible spectroscopy, and zeta potential studies. HR-TEM pictures show highly exfoliated GO layers with fine Ag@AgCl nanostructures evenly implanted, demonstrating that an Ag@AgCl-GO NCs has grown. The involvement of mustard pod extract throughout the fabri-cation of the Ag@AgCl-GO NCs photocatalyst was suggested by FTIR and Raman observations. Further-more, XPS analyses revealed the existence of Ag-0 in addition to the Ag (+) of AgCl, as well as the im-mobilization of AgCl onto graphene oxide. The as synthesized Ag@AgCl-GO NCs demonstrated impres-sive photo catalytic efficacy for the degradation of highly carcinogenic 2-nitro phenol (2-NP), malachite green (MG) and congo red (CR) under visible light radiation. The experimentally obtained kinetic data revealed that the photocatalytic degradation reactions follow pseudo-first order kinetics in the pres-ence of manufactured Ag@AgCl NPs and Ag@AgCl-GO NCs. The results of Raman, FTIR, and XPS analyses showed that graphene oxide nanosheets were effectively coupled with plasmonic Ag@AgCl NPs, result -ing in increased physical separation of photo-induced electron-hole sets and thus markedly increased the photocatalytic performance of GO conjugated Ag@AgCl NPs over pure Ag@AgCl NPs. The most active radical species responsible for the photocatalytic degradation of 2-NP, MG, and CR are identified as h + and center dot O-2(-). (C) 2022 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.

Automated summary

In this paper, a synthesis method of Ag@AgCl immobilized graphene oxide (GO) nanocomposite using mustard pod extract (MPE) is reported. The synthesized Ag@AgCl-GO NCs showed impressive photocatalytic performance for the degradation of highly carcinogenic substances under visible light radiation.