Enhanced photocatalytic activity of Ag3PO4 photocatalyst via glucose-based carbonsphere modification

A novel Ag3PO4@glucose-based carbon sphere photocatalyst (CS-Ag3PO4) was synthesized through the growth of carbon sphere on Ag3PO4 particles, and was applied into photocatalytic degradation of Methyl Orange (MO) under visible-light irradiation. CS-Ag3PO4 was characterized by X-ray diffractometry, transmission electron microscopy, ultraviolet-visible absorption spectroscopy and photo-luminescence spectroscopy. We found CS-Ag3PO4 significantly promoted the MO degradation under artificial sunlight irradiation. The visible-light photocatalytic activity was maximized at the dose of 5 mg/L CS-Ag3PO4, which obviously maintained the high activity even after five cycles. The remarkable enhancement of photocatalytic activity could be mainly attributed to the slow recombination between photo-induced carriers and the strong visible-light absorption ability. On basis of experiments, was proposed a possible mechanism for the photocatalytic activity enhancement was the presence of OH. This study contributes to the promising applications of carbon sphere in photocatalysis.