Preparation of carbon microspheres decorated with silver nanoparticles and their ability to remove dyes from aqueous solution

Highlights: • Carbon microspheres decorated with silver nanoparticles (AgNP-CMSs) were prepared. • AgNP-CMSs show not only rapid and high adsorption capacity to methylene blue (MB) in water, but also excellent reusability. • It exhibits photocatalytic activity to Rhodamine B as well as MB under visible light. • The adsorption is from the ionic interactions but not the π–π conjugations. • The origin of photocatalysis is a surface plasmon resonance effect of AgNP on CMSs. - Abstract: Solid, but not hollow or porous, carbon microspheres decorated with silver nanoparticles (AgNP-CMSs) were prepared from silver nitrate and CMSs by a redox reaction at room temperature. The CMSs and AgNP-CMSs were characterized using X-ray diffraction, scanning electron microscopy, field emission scanning electron microscopy, Raman spectroscopy, Fourier transform infrared spectroscopy (FTIR), and UV–vis spectrophotometry. Though with non-high specific surface area, the AgNP-CMSs exhibited a high adsorption capacity toward methylene blue (MB) in an aqueous solution. The AgNP-CMSs were able to remove all the MB from a solution of 30 mg/L MB in water within 1 min when the adsorbent concentration was 0.12 g/L. The AgNP-CMSs also exhibited good adsorption and photocatalytic activity in the decomposition of aqueous Rhodamine B as well as MB under visible light. FTIR was used to examine the interaction between AgNP-CMSs and MB, and the spectrum and more extra experiments suggest ionic interactions between cationic dyes and the negatively charged groups can be formed but not the presence of abundant π–π conjugations between dye molecules and the aromatic rings. The origin of the photocatalytic activity of AgNP-CMSs was attributed to a surface plasmon resonance (SPR) effect of the silver nanoparticles on the CMSs