A Facile Way to Rejuvenate Ag₃PO₄ as a Recyclable Highly Efficient Photocatalyst

Abstract

Recycling awarded the silver: Ag(3)PO(4), a highly efficient photocatalyst, decomposes to the weak photocatalyst Ag during consecutive photocatalytic cycles. A facile and very mild wet chemical oxidation method was proposed, which involves the cooperation of H(2)O(2) with Na(2)HPO(4), to rejuvenate Ag(3)PO(4) from Ag as a recyclable highly efficient photocatalyst.

Photocatalytic decolorization of methylene blue dye by Ag3PO4–AgX (X = Cl−, Br− and I−) under visible light

“…The stability of photocatalyst was evaluated by a monitoring of photocatalytic efficiency for MB during a five cycles experiment as shown in Fig 5. The photocatalytic degradation for all samples was continuously decreased with a number of cycles that could come from the decomposition of Ag 3 PO 4 to metallic silver (Ag 0 ) as usually reported in many literatures [6,[10][11][12] and it can be seen in Fig 6. At fifth cycle, the photocatalytic efficiencies for pure Ag 3 PO 4 , Ag 3 PO 4 -10 mol% AgCl and Ag 3 PO 4 -10 mol% AgBr were decreased by 58%, 30% and 36%, respectively, from their activities at the first cycle so these results indicate that the stability of AgX (X = Cl À and Br À ) modified Ag 3 PO 4 is better than unmodified Ag 3 PO 4 .…”

“…It can degrade methylene blue dye faster than BiVO 4 and TiO 2Àx N x [5]. During the photocatalytic reaction, Ag 3 PO 4 is decomposed to Ag and PO 3À 4 that inhibits further photocatalytic activity [6]. Recently more attention has been paid to try to protect this reaction by the preparation of Ag 3 PO 4 composite photocatalysts for example, TiO 2 /Ag 3 PO 4 [7], Ag/Ag 3 PO 4 [8], Ag 3 PO 4 /graphene [9] etc.…”

In-situ synthesis of plasmonic Ag/Ag3PO4 tetrahedron with exposed {111} facets for high visible-light photocatalytic activity and stability

“…Recently, Ag 3 PO 4 was reported to be an excellent visible-light driven photocatalyst for its extremely high photooxidative capability for O 2 evolution from water and organic pollutants photodegradation [11][12][13][14]. More specifically, Ag 3 PO 4 photocatalyst can achieve an extremely high quantum yield of about 80% under visible-light irradiation [15], which is significantly higher than the previous reports.…”

Construction of magnetically separable Ag3PO4/Fe3O4/GO composites as recyclable photocatalysts

“…However, Ag 3 PO 4 is subject to stability issues in practical applications because it can be photoreduced and decomposed to weakly active Ag if no sacrificial reagent is involved [4][5][6]. Many works have been made to improve the stability while simultaneously further enhance the photocatalytic performance of Ag 3 PO 4 .…”