Schottky-junction plasmonic nanocomposite: A non-hazardous excellent visible light photocatalyst for industrial waste management

A bio-compatible nanocomposite "Ag/Ag doped TiO2" with UV-Visible-NIR light gathering quality was synthesized by solvothermal method, followed by green synthesis method. Insertion of Ag+ ions into Ti2+ lattice sites in Ag doped TiO2 alters the n-type TiO2 semiconductor to p-type. Nanostructured doped TiO2 suffers high charge recombination loss in presence of trapped states, resulting 35 % photocatalytic efficiency. Ag decoration on p-type Ag doped TiO2 forms a Schottky barrier at metal-semiconductor junction(,) which reduces charge recombination loss by separating the photogenerated electron-hole (e-h) in two materials of the nanocomposite. These photogenerated charges create oxide and hydroxide super radicals in the aqueous system of photocatalyst, ensuing 80% degradation of SO dye under 50 min white light illumination. The nanocomposite also demonstrated good performance in degradation of industrial dyes like 50% Mordant Orange (MO) and 15% Direct Blue (DB) under 50 min white light irradiation. DFT analysis of the heterosystems supports absorptivity tuning of experimentally obtained nanocomposite. Moreover, the nanocomposite proved its non-toxicity to human cells, as it reveals < 20% cell death with maximum dose (250 mu g/ml) of the nanocomposite in cytotoxicity test. Hence, proper designing and synthesizing the nanocomposite explored an eco-friendly solar photocatalyst for industrial waste management.