Abstract
Understanding the graphene/semiconductor/metal interactions is crucial to design innovative photocatalytic materials with efficient photocatalytic activity for environmental cleanup applications. SrTiO3 on reduced graphene oxide (rGO) with various graphene contents was successfully synthesized in this study utilizing a simple hydrothermal method, followed by decorating the surface with Ag particles by using the photodeposition process. Under UV–visible light irradiation, the resulting composites were tested for their improved photocatalytic activity to decompose methylene blue (MB). The prepared photocatalysts were characterized by XRD, SEM, EDX, DLS, FT-IR, Raman spectroscopy, and DRS. First-principle density functional theory calculations (DFT) were also carried out by using the generalized gradient approximation (GGA) and PBE functional with the addition of on-site Coulomb correction (GGA + U). The obtained SrTiO3/rGO@Ag composites showed great improvement in the photocatalytic performances over pristine SrTiO3. For the degradation reaction of MB, SrTiO3/rGO20%@Ag4% composites yielded the best photocatalytic activity with efficacy reach 94%, which was also shown that it could be recycled up to four times with nearly unchanged photocatalytic activity.
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The authors would like to thank the MESRS and DGRSDT (Ministère de l’Enseignement Supérieur et de la Recherche Scientifique et la Direction Générale de la Recherche Scientifique et du Développement Technologique- Algérie) for their financial support.
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This study funded by the Ministry of Higher Education and Scientific Research and the General Directorate of Scientific Research and Technological Development—Algeria.
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All authors contributed to the study conception and design. Material preparation, data collection, and analysis were performed by Guediri Mohamed Khalil, Chebli Derradji, and Bourzami Riadh The first draft of the manuscript was written by Chebli Derradji, Bouguettoucha Abdallah, and Amrane Abdeltif, and all authors commented on previous versions of the manuscript. All authors read and approved the final manuscript.
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Guediri, M.K., Chebli, D., Bouguettoucha, A. et al. Interfacial coupling effects on adsorptive and photocatalytic performances for photoresponsive graphene-wrapped SrTiO3@Ag under UV–visible light: experimental and DFT approach. Environ Sci Pollut Res 29, 28098–28114 (2022). https://doi.org/10.1007/s11356-021-17543-x
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s11356-021-17543-x