Facile Synthesis of Ag2o, Ag2s and Agcl Nps for the Photocatalytic Degradation of Rhodamine B Dye

摘要: Access to safe drinking water has become a matter of concern due to climate change, infrastructure mismanagement, and contamination of freshwater sources. Consequently, strategic economic activities (ie, agriculture and manufacturing) face risk of contraction. Herein, we assess the potential use of unsupported silver-based nanoparticles (NPs) to photocatalytically degrade Rhodamine B (RB) dye in water under solar simulated light. Silver oxide (Ag2O), silver sulfide (Ag2S) and silver chloride (AgCl) NPs were produced using the aqueous, solvothermal, and co-precipitation methods, respectively. UV-vis absorption spectroscopy of Ag2O, Ag2S, and AgCl NPs illustrated them to have a band gap of 2.97, 3.11, and 3.05 eV, respectively. X-ray diffraction elucidated the crystallographic structures of Ag2O, Ag2S, and AgCl NPs to be cubic, monoclinic, and cubic, respectively. Transmission electron microscopy depicted well-defined shapes, with average sizes of 23.0±5.7 (Ag2O), 30.6±7.4 (Ag2S), and 10.6±7.2 nm (AgCl). The degradation of RB (5 ppm) followed a pseudo first order, where efficiencies of 66%(Ag2O), 78%(Ag2S), and 75%(AgCl) were obtained within 150 min.