Nitrogen-doped graphene modified AgX@Ag (X = Br, Cl) composites with improved visible light photocatalytic activity and stability

Nitrogen-doped graphene modified AgX@Ag (NG-AgX@Ag, X = Br, Cl) composites were prepared by a simple co-precipitation method under ambient condition. The composites possessed higher photocatalytic activity than corresponding bare AgX@Ag and TiO2-AgX@Ag towards degradation of rhodamine B (RhB) aqueous solution under visible light irradiation, which can be ascribed to the corporative effects of more light harvest, enhanced adsorption capacity and more efficient separation of photogenerated electron-hole pairs after integrated with nitrogen-doped graphene. The NG-AgX@Ag (X = Br, Cl) composites exhibited efficiencies of 86% and 89% for photodegradation of RhB, which were about 2 times and 1.8 times of corresponding bare AgX@Ag (X = Br, Cl), respectively. The composites also had a relatively high stability. (C) 2014 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.