Facile synthesis of magnetically separable CoFe2O4/Ag2O/Ag2CO3 nanoheterostructures with high photocatalytic performance under visible light and enhanced stability against photodegradation

• Published in: Journal of environmental chemical engineering 2017-08, Vol.5 (4), p.3455-3462
• Main Authors: Šutka, Andris, Döbelin, Nicola, Joost, Urmas, Smits, Krisjanis, Kisand, Vambola, Maiorov, Mihael, Kooser, Kuno, Kook, Mati, Duarte, Roberto Felix, Käämbre, Tanel
• Format: Article
• Language: English
• Subjects: Magnetic; Nanoheterostructures; Photocatalytic; Silver carbonate; Silver oxide
• ISSN: 2213-3437; 2213-3437
• DOI: 10.1016/j.jece.2017.07.009

[Display omitted] •Ag2O/Ag2CO3 formed by phase transformation of Ag2O in reaction with ambient CO2.•Ag2O/Ag2CO3 Exhibit 3 times higher visible light photocatalytic activity than Ag2O.•Coupling Ag2O/Ag2CO3 with CoFe2O4 adds magnetic separability and stability.•Electronic structure is studied by HAXPES.•(CoFe2O4)x/(Ag2O/Ag2CO3)1-x outperforms reported magnetic photocatalyst systems. We have developed magnetically separable and reasonably stable visible light active photocatalysts containing CoFe2O4 and mixture of Ag2O/Ag2CO3 nanoheterostructures. Obtained ternary nanoheterostructures outperform previously reported magnetically separable visible light photocatalysts, showing one of the highest visible light photocatalytic dye degradation activities in water by a magnetically separable photocatalyst. Photocatalytically active part is Ag2O/Ag2CO3 whereas the CoFe2O4 mainly has stabilizing and magnetic separation functions. The Ag2CO3 phase junction on Ag2O nanoparticle surface were obtained by straightforward phase transformation from silver oxide to silver carbonate in air due to ambient CO2. The phase transformation was followed using X-ray diffraction (XRD), and hard X-ray photoelectron spectroscopy (HAXPES) measurements.