Facile synthesis of novel octahedral Cu2O/Ag3PO4 composite with enhanced visible light photocatalysis.

In this paper, novel Z-scheme octahedral Cu 2 O/Ag 3 PO 4 composites are fabricated by a facile chemical method at low temperature. Field emission scanning electron microscope (FESEM), UV–Vis diffuse reflectance spectroscopy (DRS), energy dispersive spectrometer (EDS) and X-ray diffraction (XRD) are used to investigate the crystal structure and optical properties of the as-prepared nanocomposites. Photocatalytic activity of catalysts is displayed by methylene blue (MB) removal under visible light irradiation. The results show that photocatalytic performance of Cu 2 O/Ag 3 PO 4 is much higher than that of Cu 2 O and Ag 3 PO 4 , and the kinetic constant k app of MB degradation over Cu 2 O/Ag 3 PO 4 is 0.30447 min −1 , which is 7.0 and 2.1 times as high as those of Cu 2 O and Ag 3 PO 4 , respectively. Finally, the possible separation mechanism of electrons and holes is proposed. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]