Fabrication of a Ag3PO4/Reduced graphene oxide/BiOBr ternary photocatalyst for enhanced visible-light photocatalytic activity and stability

In this work, a novel visible-light-driven photocatalyst Ag3PO4/RGO/BiOBr was successfully prepared with hydrothermal and precipitation methods. The morphology, structure and photocatalytic activity of the as-prepared photocatalyst were characterized by X-ray diffraction (XRD), Fourier transform infrared spectroscopy (FT-IR), X-ray photoelectron spectroscopy (XPS), Scanning electron microscopy (SEM) and Transmission electron microscopy (TEM). The catalytic properties of photocatalysts were analysed by UV-Vis diffuse reflectance spectra (UV-Vis DRS). The degradation rate of methylene blue (MB) for the Ag3PO4/RGO/BiOBr composite (96.5%) was higher than that for BiOBr (60.25%), Ag3PO4 (68.27%) and Ag3PO4/BiOBr (84.96%) after visible light irradiation for 30 min. Moreover, a possible mechanism for the photocatalyst was proposed in this study, and the improvement of the photocatalytic performance was attributed to the effective separation and transfer of photostimulated electron-hole pairs. This catalytic mechanism is in agreement with photoluminescence spectra (PL), photoelectrochemical measurements and radical capture experiments. In general, the Ag3PO4/RGO/BiOBr photocatalyst has good application prospects for the degradation of dyes and environmental protection. (C) 2019 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.