Enhanced photocatalytic performance of Ag/TiO2 nanohybrid sensitized by black phosphorus nanosheets in visible and near-infrared light

Abstract

The efficient utilization of solar energy for environmental cleaning has attracted great attention, where the key is to efficiently harvest the visible and near-infrared (NIR) light which occupies approximately 95% of the solar light energy. Recently, black phosphorus (BP), as a new staring 2D material, has been extensively studied as photocatalytic materials due to its broad light absorption and tunable bandgap. Herein, we report a novel ternary nanocomposite, BP-Ag/TiO₂, prepared through controlled deposition of Ag clusters on the surface of TiO₂ nanocrystals and then incorporated to BP nanosheets. The BP-Ag/TiO₂ nanocomposite has shown excellent photocatalytic activity towards the degradation of methylene blue (MB) under visible and NIR light irradiation. About 100% and even 25% of MB was degraded in 85 min under >420 nm and >780 nm irradiation, respectively. The enhanced photocatalytic activity of BP-Ag/TiO₂ nanocomposite was mainly ascribed to the sensitization of BP nanosheets by fully harvest of solar light and high electron-hole separation efficiency. We believe that the BP-Ag/TiO₂ nanocomposite will be an effective photofunctional material in full-spectrum solar energy conversion and opens up a new door for the development of solar light driven photocatalysts for the remediation of environmental pollution.

Keywords: Ag clusters; BP-Ag/TiO(2) nanocomposite; Black phosphorus nanosheets; Methylene blue; Photocatalysis.