Synthesis of cube-like Ag/AgCl plasmonic photocatalyst with enhanced visible light photocatalytic activity

• Cube-like Ag/AgCl photocatalyst was successfully synthesized via a one-pot method.
• Hot spring, a clean and cheap resource, acted as the chlorine source.
• Ag/AgCl plasmonic photocatalyst had a strong absorption in visible light region.
• Cube-like Ag/AgCl showed high visible light photocatalytic activity and stability.

Cube-like Ag/AgCl plasmonic photocatalyst was successfully synthesized through a one-pot precipitation method by simply adding an aqueous solution of AgNO3 into the natural hot spring, wherein the hot spring acted as the chlorine source. The cube-like Ag/AgCl with a size of 0.5–0.9 μm exhibited enhanced visible light photocatalytic performance for the degradation of organic MO dye due to the localized surface plasmon resonance (LSPR) of the photoexcited Ag species. The trapping experiments confirmed that O2− and h+ were the main active species during the photocatalytic process.

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