Construction of hybrid Ag2CO3/AgVO3 nanowires with enhanced visible light photocatalytic activity

Highlights: • Hybrid Ag₂CO₃/AgVO₃ nanowires were successfully synthesized. • The as-prepared sample displayed highly enhanced photocatalytic activity. • Possible photocatalytic mechanism for RhB degradation was proposed. - Abstract: Visible light driven pollutant degradation by photocatalyst was one of most efficient and economical strategies for environmental application. The focus and challenge was to fabricate efficient artificial photocatalysts. In this work, hybrid Ag₂CO₃/AgVO₃ nanowires were first reported to be successfully synthesized by the facile ion-exchange method. The as-prepared Ag₂CO₃/AgVO₃ nanowires showed highly improved visible light photocatalytic activity for RhB degradation, and the optimized Ag₂CO₃/AgVO₃-40% photocatalyst exhibited the best photocatalytic activity, which is 3.6 times of pure Ag₂CO₃ and 13.3 times of pure AgVO₃ catalysts, mainly due to the formation of Ag nanoparticles and Ag₂CO₃/AgVO₃ heterojunction for charge separation. The degradation of RhB solution was mainly attributed to direct hole oxidation, which was also confirmed by the active species trapping experiments. Finally, the possible visible light photocatalytic mechanism of Ag/Ag₂CO₃/AgVO₃ composites for RhB degradation was proposed.