One‐Pot Synthesis of Ag‐TiO ₂ ‐rGO Nanocomposites for Visible‐Light Photodegradation

Abstract

Abstract In this paper, we report a one‐pot hydrothermal method for fabricating Ag‐TiO 2 ‐rGO nanocomposites using P25 (commercial TiO 2 ), graphene oxide (GO), AgNO 3 as raw materials, and vitamin C (VC) as the reducing agent. X‐ray diffraction (XRD), Raman spectroscopy, field emission scanning electron microscopy (FESEM), transmission electron microscopy (TEM), UV‐vis diffuse reflectance spectroscopy (UV‐vis DRS) and X‐ray photoelectron spectroscopy (XPS) are utilized to characterize the phase composition, surface morphology, optical properties and chemical bonding states of the resulting nanocomposites. The nanocomposites display a porous structure, and chemical bonds such as C−O−Ti bonds are formed between TiO 2 and rGO. The photocatalytic activity of the synthesized nanocomposites is evaluated using methylene blue (MB), and the GO loading content is optimized to implement the highest adsorption and photodegradation performances. Three possible excitation modes of photogenerated carriers are proposed, and possible photocatalytic mechanism of the nanocomposites under visible light is presented.