Co3O4-Ag photocatalysts for the efficient degradation of methyl orange

Hongmei Chen; Chenyang Xue; Danfeng Cui; Maoxing Liu; Yi Chen; Yuankai Li; Wendong Zhang

doi:10.1039/c9ra10437b

Co₃O₄-Ag photocatalysts for the efficient degradation of methyl orange

RSC Adv. 2020 Apr 17;10(26):15245-15251. doi: 10.1039/c9ra10437b. eCollection 2020 Apr 16.

Authors

Hongmei Chen¹, Chenyang Xue¹, Danfeng Cui¹, Maoxing Liu², Yi Chen¹, Yuankai Li¹, Wendong Zhang¹

Affiliations

¹ Science and Technology on Electronic Test and Measurement Laboratory, North University of China Taiyuan Shanxi 030051 China xuechenyang@nuc.edu.cn wdzhang@nuc.edu.cn.
² Department of Mathematics, Qingdao University of Science and Technology Qingdao 266061 China.

Abstract

In this paper, a series of Co₃O₄-Ag photocatalysts with different Ag loadings were synthesized by facile hydrothermal and in situ photoreduction methods and fully characterized by XRD, SEM, TEM, FTIR spectroscopy, XPS, UV-vis and PL techniques. The catalysts were used for the degradation of methyl orange (MO). Compared with the pure Co₃O₄ catalyst, the Co₃O₄-Ag catalysts showed better activity; among these, the Co₃O₄-Ag-0.3 catalyst demonstrated the most efficient activity with 96.4% degradation efficiency after 30 h UV light irradiation and high degradation efficiency of 99.1% after 6 h visible light irradiation. According to the corresponding dynamics study under UV light irradiation, the photocatalytic efficiency of Co₃O₄-Ag-0.3 was 2.72 times higher than that of Co₃O₄ under identical reaction conditions. The excellent photocatalytic activity of Co₃O₄-Ag can be attributed to the synergistic effect of strong absorption under UV and visible light, reduced photoelectron and hole recombination rate, and decreased band gap due to Ag doping. Additionally, a possible reaction mechanism over the Co₃O₄-Ag photocatalysts was proposed and explained.