AUTHOR=Qi Kezhen , Li Yi , Xie Yubo , Liu Shu-yuan , Zheng Kun , Chen Zhe , Wang Ruidan 

TITLE=Ag Loading Enhanced Photocatalytic Activity of g-C3N4 Porous Nanosheets for Decomposition of Organic Pollutants

JOURNAL=Frontiers in Chemistry

VOLUME=7

YEAR=2019

URL=https://www.frontiersin.org/journals/chemistry/articles/10.3389/fchem.2019.00091

DOI=10.3389/fchem.2019.00091

ISSN=2296-2646

ABSTRACT=<p>The g-C<sub>3</sub>N<sub>4</sub> porous nanosheets with different loading amount of Ag nanoparticles (NPs) are successfully prepared by a simple liquid-phase reduction method. These Ag/g-C<sub>3</sub>N<sub>4</sub> composites have an improved photocatalytic performance for decomposing organic pollutants compared with that of pure g-C<sub>3</sub>N<sub>4</sub> nanosheets. Many measurements have been used for characterizing the samples, such as XRD, FTIR, UV-Vis DRS, PL, XPS, EDS, SEM, and TEM. In Ag/g-C<sub>3</sub>N<sub>4</sub>, the Ag NPs are uniformly coated on the g-C<sub>3</sub>N<sub>4</sub> surface, the diameter is mainly in the range of 8~18 nanometers. Loading of Ag NPs expand the response to the visible light for g-C<sub>3</sub>N<sub>4</sub> and increasing the producing rate of photogenerated e<sup>−</sup>-h<sup>+</sup> pairs. The loading of silver NPs obviously enhances the photocatalytic activity of C<sub>3</sub>N<sub>4</sub> nanosheets toward the Rhodamine B (RhB) decomposition under the simulated sunlight irradiation. With different loading amounts of Ag NPs, Ag/g-C<sub>3</sub>N<sub>4</sub> (3 wt% of Ag) showed the highest photocatalytic activity for RhB decomposition among these as-prepared samples, which is 10 times of the rate of pure C<sub>3</sub>N<sub>4</sub>. Based on the experimental results, a possible photocatalytic mechanism for Ag/g-C<sub>3</sub>N<sub>4</sub> is proposed.</p>