Preparation of Ag/g-C3N4/C Ternary Nanocomposites and Study of their Photoreactivity

In this article, novel Ag/g-C3N4/C ternary nanocomposites with leaves-fructification-like architecture were prepared by hydrothermal treatment of the mixture of g-C3N4 nanosheets, glucose solution and silver nitrate. In order to comparison, a series of nanomaterials including g-C3N4 nanosheets, binary nanocomposites (g-C3N4/C) and ternary nanocomposites (Ag/g-C3N4/C) loaded with different amounts of carbon were prepared and characterized in detail. The Ag/g-C3N4/C1 nanocomposites showed the highest photocatalytic activity towards degradation of MB. The reason for this was bio-inspired structures effects and the synergistic effect of Ag, g-C3N4 and carbon, which increased visible-light absorption due to their surface plasmon resonance (SPR) effect of Ag, enhanced adsorption for the MB because of the negatively charged surface of Ag, improved photoinduced electron-hole separation efficiency owing to carbon and bio-inspired structures effects.