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Facile preparation of ternary Ag2CO3/Ag/PANI composite nanorods with enhanced photoactivity and stability

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Abstract

One-dimensional ternary nanostructures, Ag2CO3 nanorod cores coated with an intermediate layer of Ag nanoparticles (NPs) and a sheath of conducting polymer polyaniline (PANI), Ag2CO3/Ag/PANI composite nanorods (CNRs), were successfully prepared via a facile two-step method. Ag NPs were first uniformly anchored onto the Ag2CO3 nanorods to form binary Ag2CO3/Ag CNRs with an in situ visible-light-induced reduction strategy, and then the Ag2CO3/Ag CNRs were coated with PANI of different contents through a simple chemisorption approach. The as-obtained hybrids exhibit significantly enhanced photoelectrochemical current response and photoactivity in degrading methyl orange under visible-light illumination (λ > 420 nm). The improved photoactivity was found to be related to the intermediate Ag between Ag2CO3 and PANI which facilitates the separation efficiency of photogenerated carriers, and an optimal weight percent of 2.0% PANI was observed. The origin of enhanced photoactivity was further investigated by a radical-trapping test, and a Z-scheme mechanism was proposed to explain the charge separation behaviors.

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Acknowledgements

Financial support from the Natural Science Foundation of China (21671173, 61674166, 11504299), the Zhejiang Provincial Natural Science Foundation of China (LR14B010001), the Zhejiang Provincial Public Welfare Project (2016C31015), and the State Key Laboratory of Silicon Materials at Zhejiang University (2015-10) is gratefully acknowledged. J.Q.N. acknowledges the financial support from The Hundred Talents Program of Chinese Academy of Sciences, and Z.Y.Z. acknowledges the financial support from The Thousand Youth Talents Plan. And C.C.Z. acknowledges the partial support of an open project from State Key Laboratory of Functional Materials for Informatics, Shanghai Institute of Microsystem and Information Technology.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Institute of Physical Chemistry, Zhejiang Normal University, Jinhua, 321004, People’s Republic of China

    Fang Chen, Yadan Wu, Jiabin Ren, Yijun Zhong & Yong Hu

  2. Suzhou Institute of Nano-Tech and Nano-Bionics, Chinese Academy of Sciences, Suzhou, 215123, People’s Republic of China

    Jiqiang Ning & Ziyang Zhang

  3. Department of Mathematical Sciences, Mathematics and Physics Centre, Xi’an Jiaotong-Liverpool University, Suzhou, 215123, People’s Republic of China

    Changcheng Zheng

  4. State Key Lab of Silicon Materials, College of Materials Science and Engineering, Zhejiang University, Hangzhou, 310027, People’s Republic of China

    Yong Hu

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  1. Fang Chen
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Correspondence to Yijun Zhong or Yong Hu.

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Chen, F., Wu, Y., Ning, J. et al. Facile preparation of ternary Ag2CO3/Ag/PANI composite nanorods with enhanced photoactivity and stability. J Mater Sci 52, 4521–4531 (2017). https://doi.org/10.1007/s10853-016-0697-7

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