Silver-decorated orthophosphate@bismuth molybdate heterostructure: An efficient photocatalyst with two visible-light active components.

In this paper, decorating Ag 3 PO 4 /Bi 2 MoO 6 heterostructures with uniformly dispersed ultrafine Ag nanoparticles are obtained by a combination of solvothermal technique, deposition–precipitation method and in situ photoreduction process. Two visible-light active components (Ag 3 PO 4 , Bi 2 MoO 6 ) and the electron-transfer system (Ag) are spatially fixed in this heterostructures system. The photocatalytic studies revealed that the heterostructures system exhibits enhanced photocatalytic activity than the Bi 2 MoO 6 and Ag 3 PO 4 /Bi 2 MoO 6 heterostructures under visible light. The enhanced photocatalytic activity can be attributed to the effective separation of photogenerated carriers driven by the matching band potentials between Ag 3 PO 4 and Bi 2 MoO 6 , as well as the good electron trapping role of Ag nanoparticles in situ formed on the surfaces of Ag 3 PO 4 particles during the photocatalytic reaction. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]