A facile and reproducible template free in situ precipitation method has been developed for the synthesis of Ag 3 PO 4 nanoparticles on the surface of a g-C 3 N 4 photocatalyst at room temperature. The g-C 3 N 4 -Ag 3 PO 4 organic-inorganic hybrid nanocomposite photocatalysts were characterized by various techniques. TEM results show the in situ growth of finely distributed Ag 3 PO 4 nanoparticles on the surface of the g-C 3 N 4 sheet. The optimum photocatalytic activity of g-C 3 N 4 -Ag 3 PO 4 at 25 wt% of g-C 3 N 4 under visible light is almost 5 and 3.5 times higher than pure g-C 3 N 4 and Ag 3 PO 4 respectively.More attractively, the stability of Ag 3 PO 4 was improved due to the in situ deposition of Ag 3 PO 4 nanoparticles on the surface of the g-C 3 N 4 sheet. The improved performance of the g-C 3 N 4 -Ag 3 PO 4 hybrid nanocomposite photocatalysts under visible light irradiation was induced by a synergistic effect, including high charge separation efficiency of the photoinduced electron-hole pair, the smaller particle size, relatively high surface area and the energy band structure. Interestingly, the heterostructured g-C 3 N 4 -Ag 3 PO 4 nanocomposite significantly reduces the use of the noble metal silver, thereby effectively reducing the cost of the Ag 3 PO 4 based photocatalyst.
Herein we demonstrate a facile, reproducible, and templatefree strategy to prepare g-C 3 N 4 −Fe 3 O 4 nanocomposites by an in situ growth mechanism. The results indicate that monodisperse Fe 3 O 4 nanoparticles with diameters as small as 8 nm are uniformly deposited on g-C 3 N 4 sheets, and as a result, aggregation of the Fe 3 O 4 nanoparticles is effectively prevented. The as-prepared g-C 3 N 4 −Fe 3 O 4 nanocomposites exhibit significantly enhanced photocatalytic activity for the degradation of rhodamine B under visible-light irradiation. Interestingly, the g-C 3 N 4 − Fe 3 O 4 nanocomposites showed good recyclability without loss of apparent photocatalytic activity even after six cycles, and more importantly, g-C 3 N 4 − Fe 3 O 4 could be recovered magnetically. The high performance of the g-C 3 N 4 −Fe 3 O 4 photocatalysts is due to a synergistic effect including the large surface-exposure area, high visible-light-absorption efficiency, and enhanced charge-separation properties. In addition, the superparamagnetic behavior of the as-prepared g-C 3 N 4 −Fe 3 O 4 nanocomposites also makes them promising candidates for applications in the fields of lithium storage capacity and bionanotechnology.
Non-doped and La-doped ZnTiO3 nanoparticles were successfully synthesized via a modified sol-gel method. The synthesized nanoparticles were structurally characterized by PXRD, UV-vis DRS, FT-IR, SEM-EDS, TEM, Raman and photoluminescence spectroscopy. The results show that doping of La into the framework of ZnTiO3 has a strong influence on the physico-chemical properties of the synthesized nanoparticles. XRD results clearly show that the non-doped ZnTiO3 exhibits a hexagonal phase at 800 °C, whereas the La-doped ZnTiO3 exhibits a cubic phase under similar experimental conditions. In spite of the fact that it has a large ionic radius, the La is efficiently involved in the evolution process by blocking the crystal growth and the cubic to hexagonal transformation in ZnTiO3. Interestingly the absorption edge of the La-doped ZnTiO3 nanoparticles shifted from the UV region to the visible region. The photocatalytic activity of the La-doped ZnTiO3 nanoparticles was evaluated for the degradation of Rhodamine B under sunlight irradiation. The optimum photocatalytic activity was obtained for 2 atom% La-doped ZnTiO3, which is much higher than that of the non-doped ZnTiO3 as well as commercial N-TiO2. A possible mechanism for the degradation of Rhodamine B over La-doped ZnTiO3 was also discussed by trapping experiments. More importantly, the reusability of these nanoparticles is high. Hence La-doped ZnTiO3 nanoparticles can be used as efficient photocatalysts for environmental applications.
scite is a Brooklyn-based organization that helps researchers better discover and understand research articles through Smart Citations–citations that display the context of the citation and describe whether the article provides supporting or contrasting evidence. scite is used by students and researchers from around the world and is funded in part by the National Science Foundation and the National Institute on Drug Abuse of the National Institutes of Health.