A bio-inspired strategy for the interfacial assembly of graphene oxide with in situ generated Ag/AgCl: designing sustainable hybrid photocatalysts

Abstract

Herein, we report a polyamine-mediated assembly to integrate graphene oxide (GO) sheets with Ag/AgCl to fabricate a hybrid nanocomposite (GO-Ag/AgCl) at nearly neutral pH and ambient temperature. Inspired by the role of polyamines in the excellent integration of components to generate hierarchical nanostructures in biominerals such as diatoms, we showed that our strategy enabled the fabrication of GO-semiconductor composites with a well-integrated structure. The polyamines not only facilitated the in situ generation of Ag/AgCl, but also simultaneously allowed their interaction with GO suitable for visible light active photocatalysis, as revealed by the detailed characterization of the synthesized materials. Consequently, the GO-Ag/AgCl exhibited nearly 5 times higher photocatalytic activity and better photostability than Ag/AgCl under visible light irradiation. The nanocomposite reached its highest activity at the graphene content of 4.16 wt%. Thus, the assembly process represented an effective way to design hybrid composites. Moreover, as a sustainable photocatalyst, it facilitates effective separation of the photogenerated charge carriers at the interface, thereby improving activity and stability.

g-C3N4-Mediated Synthesis of Cu2O To Obtain Porous Composites with Improved Visible Light Photocatalytic Degradation of Organic Dyes

“…44 Figure 6e,f shows the linear correlation between log( C / C o ) and time ( t ) for MB and RhB, which suggests that the photodegradation reaction follows pseudo-first-order kinetics. The pseudo-first-order model gives the information about the degradation rate kinetics of Cu 2 O, g-C 3 N 4 , and all g-C 3 N 4 /Cu 2 O composites for both MB and RhB photocatalytic reactions that can be expressed as follows 50 where K = pseudo-first-order rate constant, t = reaction interval time, C o = initial concentration of the dye solution, and C = concentration of the dye solution at time “ t ”.…”

Bio‐Inspired Plasmonic Photocatalysts

“…Huo and co-workers synthesized a catalytic nanocomposite membrane, introducing Au-TiO 2 onto poly(vinylidene fluoride) (PVDF) membrane for degrading of tetracycline. [117] Inspired by the biomineralization process, where complex architecture is achieved via polyamine-mediated mineralization and assembly, [110] Rana and co-workers demonstrate the synthesis of rGO-ZnO [118] nanostructures GO-Ag/AgCl [119] in a single step using polyamines, which simultaneously facilitate the interaction between semiconductors and graphene oxide to achieve enhanced photocatalytic activity via effectively separation of photo-induced carriers.…”

Controlled Assembly of a Ternary‐Component Photocatalyst: Illustrating the Importance of Interfacial‐Integration of Ag‐ZnO‐rGO in Visible‐Light‐Induced Catalytic Activity

“…In this context, graphene based materials with their remarkable conductivity/charge carrier mobility have shown potential to effectively trap the excited electrons from the semiconductor and thereby increase the lifetime of the excited species by suppressing the charge recombination and back electron transfer processes . Furthermore, the graphene's 2‐dimensional morphology can provide high surface area for effective dispersion of the photoactive materials and their interaction with the reactant molecules . The challenge herein is to achieve an organized structure with effective interaction among the integrated components in the synthesized materials to facilitate electron transfer at their interfaces.…”