Construction of 3D sponge-like hierarchical pore Ag10Si4O13 microblock photocatalyst with enhanced photocatalytic activities

Designing efficient visible light photocatalysts is targeted to improve the solar utilization to ameliorate environmental problems. Ag10Si4O13 has great application potential due to a narrow band gap and the existence of internal electric field（spontaneous polarization electric field inside the crystal）. Here, a novel and convenient synthetic strategy based on sol-gel method and template method was proposed to fabricate 3D sponge-like hierarchical pore Ag10Si4O13 (HPA) microblock with enhanced photocatalytic activities. The group multiple coordination is conducive to further improve the dispersion of Ag10Si4O13 precursor around polystyrene (PS) microsphere. Weak sintering between nano-Ag10Si4O13 particles ensured the formation of sponge skeleton structure. Compared with Ag10Si4O13, HPA showed enhanced separation efficiency of electron hole pairs due to the carbon doping. And the uniform and well-developed pore structures further improved the photocatalytic performance. As a result, HPA (P-5) exhibited a degradation efficiency of 98.98% at 30 min under visible light, and an excellent cycle performance were obtained. The proposed strategy provides an important reference for the preparation of easily recoverable microblock photocatalyst.