Facile synthesis of heterostructured YVO4/g-C3N4/Ag photocatalysts with enhanced visible-light photocatalytic performance

A series of YVO4/g-C3N4/Ag composite photocatalysts with various concentrations of YVO4 (YVO4/g-C3N4/Ag) were synthesized for the first time by hydrothermal and the photodeposition method. The photocatalytic activity of the as-prepared YVO4/g-C3N4/Ag composites was evaluated by the degradation of methyl orange (MO) under visible light irradiation. It shows that the photocatalytic activity of g-C3N4 can be largely enhanced by loading Ag nanoparticles (NPs) and YVO4 NPs together. The optimized loading content of YVO4 is 35 wt%, and the highest rate constant shown in 35 wt% YVO4/g-C3N4/Ag is 0.03404 min(-1), about 3 times and 2.1 times higher than that in g-C3N4 (0.01131 min(-1)) and g-C3N4/Ag (0.01613 min(-1)), respectively. The surface plasmon resonance (SPR) of Ag NPs and efficiently suppressed recombination of charge carriers due to the introduction of YVO4 NPs make the YVO4/g-C3N4/Ag nanocomposite photocatalysts exhibit excellent visible photocatalytic performance and excellent photocatalytic stability. In addition, the trapping experiments using different scavengers showed that the reactive O-2 center dot and center dot OH play the major role in the photodegradation of MO.