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Highly Efficient Visible-Light-Driven Photocatalysis of Rose Bengal Dye and Hydrogen Production Using Ag@Cu/TiO<sub>2</sub> Ternary Nanocomposites
oleh: Satish Yadav, Asim Jilani, Sarika Sachan, Pramod Kumar, Sajid Ali Ansari, Muhammad Afzal, Mohammad Omaish Ansari
Format: | Article |
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Diterbitkan: | MDPI AG 2024-06-01 |
Deskripsi
In this work, an Ag@Cu/TiO<sub>2</sub> ternary nanocomposite was synthesized by a simple chemical methodology and subsequently studied for the photocatalytic degradation of rose bengal (RB) dye under visible light as well as its hydrogen production. The shape, size and topographical analysis by scanning and transmission electron microscopy revealed that all the constituents are well intercalated and are in the nano range. The energy dispersive X-ray analysis of the Ag@Cu/TiO<sub>2</sub> showed the presence of Ti, O, Cu and Ag and the absence of any other impurities, while the mapping analysis showed their uniform distribution. The X-ray photon spectroscopy also showed successful interaction between the components. Furthermore, the changes in the chemical state of Ti2p were examined. The band gap of Ag@Cu/TiO<sub>2</sub> using the Tauc plot relations was found to be the lowest at 2.86 eV in comparison to pure TiO<sub>2</sub> (3.28 eV), binary Ag/TiO<sub>2</sub> (3.13 eV) and Cu/TiO<sub>2</sub> (3.00 eV). The Ag@Cu/TiO<sub>2</sub> displayed the lowest photoluminescence intensity, suggesting the highest degradation efficiency and lowest recombination rate. The application of Ag@Cu/TiO<sub>2</sub> toward the photocatalytic degradation of RB dye exhibited a degradation rate of ~81.07%, which exceeds the efficiency of pure TiO<sub>2</sub> by 3.31 times. Apart from this, the hydrogen production of Ag@Cu/TiO<sub>2</sub> was found to be 17.1 μmol h<sup>−1</sup> g<sup>−1</sup>, suggesting that copper and silver synergistically contributed, thereby resulting in the increased hydrogen production of pure TiO<sub>2</sub>.