Facile Synthesis and Enhanced Visible-Light Photocatalytic Activity of Novel p-Ag3PO4/n-BiFeO3 Heterojunction Composites for Dye Degradation

Lijing Di; Hua Yang; Tao Xian; Xiujuan Chen

doi:10.1186/s11671-018-2671-6

Facile Synthesis and Enhanced Visible-Light Photocatalytic Activity of Novel p-Ag₃PO₄/n-BiFeO₃ Heterojunction Composites for Dye Degradation

Nanoscale Res Lett. 2018 Aug 29;13(1):257. doi: 10.1186/s11671-018-2671-6.

Authors

Lijing Di^{1

2}, Hua Yang³, Tao Xian², Xiujuan Chen¹

Affiliations

¹ State Key Laboratory of Advanced Processing and Recycling of Non-ferrous Metals, Lanzhou University of Technology, Lanzhou, 730050, China.
² College of Physics and Electronic Information Engineering, Qinghai Normal University, Xining, 810008, China.
³ State Key Laboratory of Advanced Processing and Recycling of Non-ferrous Metals, Lanzhou University of Technology, Lanzhou, 730050, China. hyang@lut.cn.

Abstract

In this work, Ag₃PO₄ microparticles were decorated onto the surface of BiFeO₃ microcuboids through a precipitation method to obtain p-Ag₃PO₄/n-BiFeO₃ heterojunction composites. The composites were employed for the degradation of acid orange 7 (AO7) under visible-light irradiation. It is found that the composites exhibit much higher photocatalytic efficiency than bare BiFeO₃. Meanwhile, the intrinsical visible-light-driven photocatalytic activity of Ag₃PO₄/BiFeO₃ composites was further confirmed by the degradation of phenol. In addition, the photo-Fenton-like catalysis property of the composite was also evaluated. The photocurrent analysis indicates that the combination of BiFeO₃ with Ag₃PO₄ leads to the inhibition of recombination of photoinduced electrons and holes. The obvious enhancement in the photocatalytic activity of the composite is mainly ascribed to the efficient photogenerated charge separation and interfacial charge migration caused by the formation of Ag₃PO₄/BiFeO₃ p-n heterojunctions.

Keywords: Ag3PO4; BiFeO3; Heterojunction; Photocatalysis.

Abstract

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