Visible-light-driven Ag/Ag3PO4-based plasmonic photocatalysts: Enhanced photocatalytic performance by hybridization with graphene oxide

An efficient visible-light-driven plasmonic photocatalyst with regard to graphene oxide (GO) hybridized Ag/Ag₃PO₄ (Ag/Ag₃PO₄/GO) nanostructures has been facilely synthesized via a deposition-precipitation method. The synthesized nanostructures have been characterized by means of scanning electron microscopy (SEM), energy-dispersive X-ray spectroscopy (EDX), X-ray diffraction (XRD), UV-vis spectra, Fourier transform infrared spectra (FT-IR), X-ray photoelectron spectroscopy (XPS), and Raman spectra. It has been disclosed that compared with the bare Ag/Ag₃PO₄ nanospecies, the GO hybridized nanostructures display enhanced photocatalytic activity for the photodegradation of methyl orange pollutant under visible-light irradiation. It is suggested that the reinforced charge transfer and the suppressed recombination of electron-hole pairs in Ag/Ag₃PO₄/GO, the smaller size of Ag/Ag₃PO₄ nanospecies in Ag/Ag₃PO₄/GO, all of which are the consequences of the hybridization of GO, are responsible for the enhanced photocatalytic performance. The investigation might open up new opportunities to obtain highly efficient Ag₃PO₄-based visible-light-driven plasmonic photocatalyst for the photodegradation of organic pollutants.