Efficient decontamination of toxic phenol pollutant using LaCO3OH nanowires decorated Ag3PO4 hierarchical composites mediated by metallic Ag

Virendrakumar G Deonikar; Rajendra B Mujmule; Deepak R Patil; Hern Kim

doi:10.1016/j.scitotenv.2019.04.198

Efficient decontamination of toxic phenol pollutant using LaCO₃OH nanowires decorated Ag₃PO₄ hierarchical composites mediated by metallic Ag

Sci Total Environ. 2019 Jul 20:675:325-336. doi: 10.1016/j.scitotenv.2019.04.198. Epub 2019 Apr 15.

Authors

Virendrakumar G Deonikar¹, Rajendra B Mujmule¹, Deepak R Patil², Hern Kim³

Affiliations

¹ Department of Energy Science and Technology, Smart Living Innovation Technology Center, Myongji University, Yongin, Gyeonggi-do 17058, Republic of Korea.
² Centre for Materials for Electronics Technology (C-MET), Ministry of Electronics and Information Technology (MeitY), Govt. of India, Pune, India; Department of Physics and Astronomy, Center for Novel State of Complex Materials Research, Seoul National University, Seoul 151-747, Republic of Korea.
³ Department of Energy Science and Technology, Smart Living Innovation Technology Center, Myongji University, Yongin, Gyeonggi-do 17058, Republic of Korea. Electronic address: hernkim@mju.ac.kr.

PMID: 31030139
DOI: 10.1016/j.scitotenv.2019.04.198

Abstract

With the aim to develop an eco-friendly, efficient and stable photocatalyst, the present work reports the synthesis of Ag₃PO₄/LaCO₃OH (AP/LC) heterojunction photocatalysts. Different weight ratios of AP/(x wt% LC) were tested to find the best composition for superior photocatalytic activity for dye pollutant degradation. AP/LC (20 wt%) revealed a superior photocatalytic activity. Hence it was selected for further analyses. Furthermore, we investigated the influence of distilled water: tetrahydrofuran (DW:TF) solvent system on the morphology as well as photocatalytic activities of AP/LC (20%) heterojunction. FESEM analysis shows that the morphology of AP/LC heterojunctions varied significantly with TF:DW ratio. Sphere-shaped like nanoparticles of LC transformed into nanowires to make intimate contact with AP polyhedras. The increase of TF with respect to DW results increase in the width of wire-like dimension of LC causes loose intimate contact within AP/LC heterojunction. The photocatalytic performance of AP/LC heterojunctions were tested against degradation of toxic phenol contaminant, and the outstanding photocatalytic activity was noticed for the AP/LC-2 photocatalyst (~99% degradation in 120 min) with a rate constant, k of 1.281 × 10^-2 min^-1. The improved photocatalytic performance can be attributed to the uniform decoration of LC nanowires on the AP microstructure which leads to intimate interface within the heterojunction and effective charge separation. The recyclability of the AP/LC-2 photocatalysts was evaluated via replicated photocatalytic reaction trials.

Keywords: Ag(3)PO(4); LaCO(3)OH; Morphological design; Phenol degradation; Solvent scheme.