Photocatalytic activity of Ag/ZnO heterostructure nanocatalyst: Correlation between structure and property

• Ag/ZnO heterostructure nanocatalysts with Ag content of 1 wt % are successfully prepared through three different simple methods, where chemical reduction and photolysis reaction are adopted to fabricate the heterostructure. The dispersity of Ag clusters and/or nanoparticles in Ag/ZnO nanocatalyst is investigated by EDX mapping and XPS techniques. The experimental results show that deposition-precipitation is an efficient method to synthesize Ag/ZnO nanocatalyst with highly dispersed Ag clusters and/or nanoparticles; the photocatalytic activity of Ag/ZnO photocatalysts mainly depends on the dispersity of metallic Ag in Ag/ZnO nanocatalyst; the higher the dispersity of metallic Ag in Ag/ZnO nanocatalyst is, the higher the photocatalytic activity of Ag/ZnO photocatalyst should be. In addition, it is also found that the dispersity of Ag/ZnO photocatalyst in the dye solution is another key factor for liquid-phase photocatalysis due to the UV-light utilizing efficiency. The higher the UV-light utilizing efficiency is, the higher the photocatalytic activity of Ag/ZnO heterostructure photocatalyst should be.

Subject headings

TEKNIK OCH TEKNOLOGIER  -- Annan teknik (hsv//swe)

ENGINEERING AND TECHNOLOGY  -- Other Engineering and Technologies (hsv//eng)

Keyword

WGS REACTION

COMPOSITES

DISPERSION

OXIDATION

NANOPARTICLES

REDUCTION

PERFORMANCE

NANOCRYSTALS

CLUSTERS

CATALYTIC-ACTIVITY

Publication and Content Type

art (subject category)

ref (subject category)