Hydrothermal synthesis of Ag₂CO₃-TiO₂ loaded reduced graphene oxide nanocomposites with highly efficient photocatalytic activity

Abstract

In this work, a growth of Ag2CO3-TiO2 NPs over GO sheets and reduction of GO were simultaneously achieved by the hydrothermal process at 130 °C for 4 h. The photocatalytic activity of the as-prepared Ag2CO3-TiO2 NPs decorated reduced graphene oxide (Ag2CO3-TiO2/rGO) composite was studied by the degradation of methylene blue (MB) solution under visible light irradiation. A remarkable enhancement in the photocatalytic activity of the TiO2 was achieved after sensitizing with Ag2CO3 and loading in rGO sheets which is attributed to the reduced charge recombination, enhanced dye adsorption, and the improvement in the light harvesting capacity of the composite.