Synthesis of novel metal nanoparitcles/SnNb2O6 nanosheets plasmonic nanocomposite photocatalysts with enhanced visible-light photocatalytic activity and mechanism insight

• Novel Metal/SnNb2O6 nanosheet plasmonic photocatalysts were synthesized.
• Metal/SnNb2O6 photocatalysts have strong interfacial interaction.
• The Au/SnNb2O6 photocatalyst showed the highest photocatalytic activity.
• A synergistic effect of LSPR and Schottky effect was proposed.
• The superoxide radicals are the main photoactive species.

In this work, novel metal nanoparitcles/SnNb2O6 nanosheets(metal = Ag, Au, and Pd) plasmonic nanocomposite photocatalysts with strong interfacial interaction were successfully constructed. The metal/SnNb2O6 nanocomposites exhibit significantly enhanced visible light photocatalytic performance toward the degradation of methylene blue (MB) as compared to bare SnNb2O6. The highest photocatalytic activity was achieved over the Au/SnNb2O6 nanocomposite with Au content of 2 wt%, which was about 2.3 times higher than bare SnNb2O6. This enhancement in photocatalytic activity could be ascribed to the low recombination rate of the electron–hole pairs because of the Schottky junction formed between Au and SnNb2O6. The photocatalytic activity trend follows the order Au/SnNb2O6 > Ag/SnNb2O6 > Pd/SnNb2O6. In addition, it was demonstrated that the superoxide radicals are the main photoactive species toward photocatalytic degradation of MB over the metal/SnNb2O6 nanocomposites.

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