Micelle-Directing Synthesis of Ag-Doped WO3 and MoO3 Composites for Photocatalytic Water Oxidation and Organic-Dye Adsorption

In this paper, an Ag-doped WO3 (and MoO3) composite has been prepared by following a simple micelle-directed method and high-temperature sintering route. The as-prepared samples were characterized by X-ray diffraction, inductively coupled plasma, transmission electron microscopy, X-ray photoelectron spectroscopy, UV/Vis diffuse reflectance spectroscopy, Brunauer-Emmett-Teller, photoluminescence spectroscopy, and electrochemical impedance spectroscopy techniques. The photocatalytic experiments reveal that their oxygen-production rates are up to 95.43 mu mol (75.45 mu mol) for Ag-doped WO3 (MoO3), which is 9.5 (7.3) times higher than that of pure WO3: 9.012mol (MoO3: 9.00 mu mol) under visible-light illumination (420nm), respectively. The improvement of their photocatalytic activity is attributed to the enhancement of their visible-light absorption and the separation efficiency of photogenerated carriers by Ag doping. Moreover, Ag-doped WO3 (MoO3) also shows excellent adsorption of rhodamineB (RhB) and methylene blue (MB) in aqueous solution, with maximum adsorption capacities towards RhB and MB of 822 and 820mgg(-1) for Ag-doped WO3, and 642 and 805mgg(-1) for Ag-doped MoO3, respectively.