Electronic Reconstruction of α-Ag2WO4 Nanorods for Visible-Light Photocatalysis

alpha-Ag2WO4 (AWO) has been studied extensively due to its H-2 evolution and organic pollution degradation ability under the irradiation of UV light. However, the band gap of AWO is theoretically calculated to be 3.55 eV, resulting in its sluggish reaction to visible light. Herein, we demonstrated that, by using the electronic reconstruction of AWO nanorods upon a unique process of laser irradiation in liquid, these nanorods performed good visible-light photocatalytic organics degradation and H-2 evolution. Using commercial AWO powders as the starting materials, we achieved the electronic reconstruction of AWO by a recrystallization of the starting powders upon laser irradiation in liquid and synthesized AWO nanorods. Due to the weak bond energy of AWO and the far from thermodynamic equilibrium process created by laser irradiation in liquid, abundant cluster distortions, especially [WO6] cluster distortions, are introduced into the crystal lattice, the defect density increases by a factor of 2.75, and uneven intermediate energy levels are inset into the band gap, resulting in a 0.44 eV decrease of the band gap, which modified the AWO itself by electronic reconstruction to be sensitive to visible light without the addition of others. Further, the first-principles calculation was carried out to clarify the electronic reconstruction of AWO, and the theoretical results confirmed the deduction based on the experimental measurements.