Fabrication and characterization of novel Ag2O-polyimide composites with enhanced visible-light photocatalytic activity

Novel high-efficiency visible-light photocatalyst, silver oxide (Ag₂O)-polyimide (PI) photocatalyst is synthesized by a liquid phase reaction method. The obtained samples are characterized by X-ray diffraction (XRD), scanning electron microscopy (SEM), transmission electron microscopy (TEM), Fourier transform infrared spectra (FT-IR) and photoluminescence (PL). The photocatalytic activity of the Ag₂O-PI composites are evaluated by the decomposition of Rhodamine B (RhB) under visible-light irradiation. All Ag₂O-PI composite possesses higher photocatalytic activity than pure Ag₂O and PI. It could be found that RhB was photodegraded with the highest degradation efficiency of 97.9% when the mass ratio of Ag₂O and PI reached to 2:1. This enhancement can be attributed to the efficient separation of photogenerated electron and holes. Furthermore, the possible mechanism for the photocatalytic activity of Ag₂O-PI composites was also proposed.