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Construction of Ag/AgCl nanostructures from Ag nanoparticles as high-performance visible-light photocatalysts

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Abstract

A combined strategy of in situ oxidation and assembly is developed to prepare Ag/AgCl nanospheres and nanocubes from Ag nanoparticles under room temperature. It is a new facile way to fabricate Ag/AgCl with small sizes and defined morphologies. Ag/AgCl nanospheres with an average size of 80 nm were achieved without any surfactants, while Ag/AgCl nanocubes with a mean edge length of 150 nm were obtained by introduction of N-dodecyl-N,N-dimethyl-2-ammonio-acetate. The possible formation mechanism involves the self-assembly of AgCl nanoparticles, Ostwald ripening and photoreduction of Ag+ into Ag0 by the room light. The as-prepared Ag/AgCl nanospheres and nanocubes exhibit excellent photocatalytic activity and stability toward degradation of organic pollutants under visible-light irradiation. It is demonstrated that Ag/AgCl nanocubes display enhanced photocatalytic activity in comparison with Ag/AgCl nanospheres due to the more efficient charge transfer. This work may pave an avenue to construct various functional materials via the assembly strategy using nanoparticles as versatile building blocks.

A combined strategy of in situ oxidation and assembly was developed to construct Ag/AgCl nanospheres and nanocubes from Ag nanoparticles, which exhibited highly photocatalytic activity and good stability for degrading methyl orange under visible light irradiation.

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Acknowledgements

The authors thank for the financial support of Doctoral Programs Foundation of China (No. 20110032110018) and Tianjin Science and Technology Support Program (No. 14TXGCCX001).

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. School of Chemical Engineering and Technology, Tianjin University, Tianjin, 300072, China

    Fan Yang, Dongzhi Liu, Tianyang Wang, Wei Li & Xueqin Zhou

  2. Collaborative Innovation Center of Chemical Science and Engineering, Tianjin University, Tianjin, 300072, China

    Fan Yang, Dongzhi Liu, Tianyang Wang, Wei Li, Wenping Hu & Xueqin Zhou

  3. Tianjin Engineering Research Center of Functional Fine Chemicals, Tianjin, 300072, China

    Dongzhi Liu, Wei Li & Xueqin Zhou

  4. School of Science, Tianjin University, Tianjin, 300072, China

    Wenping Hu

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  1. Fan Yang
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  2. Dongzhi Liu
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Correspondence to Xueqin Zhou.

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Yang, F., Liu, D., Wang, T. et al. Construction of Ag/AgCl nanostructures from Ag nanoparticles as high-performance visible-light photocatalysts. J Nanopart Res 18, 335 (2016). https://doi.org/10.1007/s11051-016-3658-9

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