Study on improving visible light photocatalytic activity of Ag3PO4 through morphology control

• Three Ag3PO4 photocatalysts were obtained through reactant constitution control.
• The effect of reactants' constitution and reaction conditions was studied.
• The reason of different degradation activity was investigated.
• Temperature is crucial in morphology and degradation activity of Ag3PO4.

Improving the visible light activity of Ag3PO4 photocatalyst through morphology control was studied using a precipitation synthetic method. It was found that the morphology depended on the reactants' constitution. With its alteration, polyhedral microcrystals, spherical and irregular nanocrystals were obtained, respectively. Among them, the polyhedrons exhibited the highest efficiency in degrading methylene blue. This was attributed to the higher visible-light absorption efficiency and more effective electron–hole separation ability of the polyhedrons, according to UV–visible diffuse reflectance spectroscopy (UV–vis DRS) and photoluminescence (PL) investigation.

The morphology dependence of photocatalytic activity for Ag3PO4 was explored. Polyhedral Ag3PO4, irregular Ag3PO4 and spherical Ag3PO4 were obtained by a precipitation method through a reactant constitution variation. Polyhedrons exhibited the highest efficiency in degrading methylene blue which resulted from the higher visible-light absorption efficiency and more effective electron–hole separation ability of the polyhedrons compared with the other two morphologies.Figure optionsDownload as PowerPoint slide