Silver-decorated orthophosphate@bismuth molybdate heterostructure: An efficient photocatalyst with two visible-light active components

• Ternary Ag/Ag3PO4/Bi2MoO6 heterostructures are prepared by a three-step fabrication route.
• Ag/Ag3PO4/Bi2MoO6 exhibits enhanced photocatalytic activity against RB.
• Effective separation of photogenerated carriers at heterojunction interface.
• Ag/Ag3PO4/Bi2MoO6 maintains high catalytic activity over several cycles.

In this paper, decorating Ag3PO4/Bi2MoO6 heterostructures with uniformly dispersed ultrafine Ag nanoparticles are obtained by a combination of solvothermal technique, deposition–precipitation method and in situ photoreduction process. Two visible-light active components (Ag3PO4, Bi2MoO6) and the electron-transfer system (Ag) are spatially fixed in this heterostructures system. The photocatalytic studies revealed that the heterostructures system exhibits enhanced photocatalytic activity than the Bi2MoO6 and Ag3PO4/Bi2MoO6 heterostructures under visible light. The enhanced photocatalytic activity can be attributed to the effective separation of photogenerated carriers driven by the matching band potentials between Ag3PO4 and Bi2MoO6, as well as the good electron trapping role of Ag nanoparticles in situ formed on the surfaces of Ag3PO4 particles during the photocatalytic reaction.

A ternary Ag/Ag3PO4/Bi2MoO6 heterostructures exhibit enhanced photocatalytic activity due to good visible light absorption capability and excellent charge separation characteristics of the formed heterojunction.Figure optionsDownload high-quality image (266 K)Download as PowerPoint slide