Photocatalytic oxidation of organic dyes with nanostructured zinc dioxide modified with silver metals

Silver-doped nano-ZnO samples with different Ag loadings were prepared by a one-spot solvothermal method. The structure, physico-chemical and optical properties of the products are characterized by using X-ray diffraction (XRD), transmission electron microscope (TEM), energy dispersive X-ray analysis (EDS), diffuse reflectance spectroscopy (DRS) and photoluminescence spectra (PL). The photocatalytic activity of the as-prepared samples was examined by using photocatalytic oxidation of methyl orange (MO) as a model reaction, and the effects of the noble metal content on the photocatalytic activity were investigated. The results indicated that the photocatalytic activity of ZnO nanoparticles can be greatly improved by depositing appropriate amount of noble metal on their surface as electron scavengers. In addition, a key mechanism was proposed in order to account for the enhanced activity. The enhancement for the photocatalytic activities can be attributed to the interaction between Ag particles and ZnO, which made Ag particles act as electron traps to effectively separate the excited electron-hole pairs.