The results in this paper shows that Ag
exhibit higher photocatalytic activity than that of pure Bi
microrods, which is mostly attributed to the composite interface
and energy band match of Ag O and Bi , inhibiting the
recombination of photoinduced electrons and holes. However,
with a large amount of Ag O loading on the composites, the
2 2 3
O–Bi O composites
2 3
O
2
2 3
O
2
photoinduced electrons and holes would recombine easily on the
Ag O, leading to decreasing of photocatalytic activity in the
2
Ag O–Bi O (4 : 1 and 5 : 1) composites. Therefore, the optimized
2 2 3
ratio for Ag O and Bi O is obtained at 3 : 1, which exhibits the
2 2 3
highest photocatalytic activity.
Fig. 5 Schematic diagram for electron–hole separations at the interface
Conclusion
and in both semiconductors.
2 2 3
In conclusion, Ag O–Bi O composites were successfully synthe-
0
.002 (1 : 3), 0.008 (1 : 2), 0.011(1 : 1), 0.043 (2 : 1), 0.051 (3 : 1),
.029 (4 : 1) and 0.026 (5 : 1). It was found that the degradation
rate of MO decomposition is dependent on the amount of Ag
loading and the highest decomposition rate is obtained by Ag O–
Bi (3 : 1), which is 5 times that of pure Bi . After the
photocatalytic reaction, the typical composite Ag O–Bi O (3 : 1)
sized through a chemical precipitation method and high photo-
catalytic activities were observed in a wide range of composition
ratios. The XRD results confirmed that crystal is composed of
cubic Ag O and monoclinic a-Bi O . UV-vis diffuse reflectance
0
2
O
2
2
2 3
2
O
3
2 3
O
spectra revealed that the Ag O–Bi O composites could absorb
2 2 3
2
2
3
more visible light than Bi O . The photocatalytic properties of
2 3
was further examined by XRD (Fig. S4{) and SEM (Fig. S5{),
which indicate that photocatalyst shows reasonable stability both
in crystallinity and morphology.
2 2 3
Ag O–Bi O composites estimated by the degradation of MO
show that the composite catalysts present the higher activity than
2 3
that of pure Ag O and Bi O . The optimized ratio of Ag O–Bi O
2
2
3
2
As shown in Fig. 5, the band structure of the synthesized Ag O–
2
composites was estimated at 3 : 1 for Ag to Bi and the
photocatalytic mechanism has been proposed based on the
relative band position of these two semiconductors.
2 3
Bi O composite was proposed to discuss the possible process of
the photocatalytic degradation of MO. It has been reported that
Ag O can be photoactivated under both blue and green excitation
2
2
5
(
below 550 nm). Meanwhile, Bi O (E = 2.8 eV) can absorb
2 3 g
Acknowledgements
visible light with wavelength shorter than 440 nm. Therefore, when
the catalysts are excited by visible light with photon energy higher
2
This work was supported by the National Science Foundation
of China (51102069, 11074060). This work was partly supported
by Innovative Talents Fund of Harbin (2010RFQXG034).
or equal to the band gap of Ag O and Bi O , electrons (e ) in the
2
2 3
valence band (VB) can be excited to the conduction band (CB)
+
with simultaneous generation of the same amount of holes (h ) in
the VB, as demonstrated in eqn 1 and 2. The photoactivated
electrons and holes in the Ag O–Bi O composite could inject into
Notes and references
2
2 3
1
2
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a reaction medium and participate in the photocatalytic reaction
process. The photoinduced holes (trapped by H O) produce
2
?
hydroxyl radical species ( OH) and the photoinduced electrons
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(
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{
Ag O ? h ze
(1)
(2)
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708 | CrystEngComm, 2012, 14, 5705–5709
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