Facet Effect of Single-Crystalline Ag₃PO₄ Sub-microcrystals on Photocatalytic Properties

Abstract

We recently reported that Ag(3)PO(4) exhibits excellent photooxidative capabilities for O(2) evolution from water and organic dye decomposition under visible-light irradiation. However, very little is known about the shape and facet effects of Ag(3)PO(4) crystals on their photocatalytic properties. Herein we have developed a facile and general route for high-yield fabrication of single-crystalline Ag(3)PO(4) rhombic dodecahedrons with only {110} facets exposed and cubes bounded entirely by {100} facets. Moreover, studies of their photocatalytic performance have indicated that rhombic dodecahedrons exhibit much higher activities than cubes for the degradation of organic contaminants, which may be primarily ascribed to the higher surface energy of {110} facets (1.31 J/m(2)) than of {100} facets (1.12 J/m(2)).

Visible-light-driven Ag/Ag3PO4-based plasmonic photocatalysts: Enhanced photocatalytic performance by hybridization with graphene oxide

“…It can be seen that both the samples display broad absorptions in the UV and visible regions. As known, the Ag 3 PO 4 nanospecies could only show apparent absorptions in UV region, and in visible region with a wavelength shorter than 550 nm [16,17]. Accompanied by the abovementioned information deduced from the EDX elemental analysis and the XRD spectra shown in Figures 2 and 3, the present result further confirms the existence of metallic Ag species in our samples, which could arouse surface plasmon resonance absorptions in the visible region [9,10,41].…”

“…More recently, it has been reported that silver orthophosphate (Ag 3 PO 4 ) could be used as highly active visible-light photocatalyst for the photodegradation of organic pollutants [15]. To further enhance photocatalytic activity of this novel material, great efforts have been addressed in terms of morphology-control [16], size-control [17], and hybridization [18,19]. Nevertheless, besides these efforts, it is highly desirable to develop unique yet highly efficient Ag 3 PO 4 -based photocatalysts with enhanced photocatalytic activity to provide more varied and new opportunities for pollutant elimination, and to match the requirements of the future environmental issues.…”

Facet‐Engineered Surface and Interface Design of Photocatalytic Materials

“…Their performance comparison revealed that {001}‐TiO 2 provided 1.79 and 3.22 times higher reaction rates than {010}‐ and {101}‐TiO 2 in photocatalytic degradation of methyl orange (MO), respectively (Figure 8d),60 as the {001} facet possessed higher surface energy and a larger number of coordinatively unsaturated Ti 4+ active sites. In another case, the Ag 3 PO 4 rhombic dodecahedrons enclosed by twelve {110} facets (Figure 8e) exhibited superior photocatalytic activity to the cubes bounded by six {100} facets (Figure 8f) in degradation of MO (Figure 8g) and rhodamine B (RhB) (Figure 8h) 61. The density functional theory (DFT) calculation revealed that the surface energy of {110} facets (1.31 J/m 2 ) was higher than that of {100} facets (1.12 J/m 2 ), indicating the higher reactivity of {110} facets.…”

Study on the Degradation of Dye Pollutants Over Silver Phosphate Photocatalyst

“…Ag 3 PO 4 with a bandgap of 2.4 eV has an exceptionally high photocatalytic efficiency due to the high separation of photoexcited electrons and holes [8][9][10]. In this work, the Ag 3 PO 4 photocatalyst was successfully prepared in weak acidity solution.…”