Boosting visible photocatalytic degradation of 2,4-dichlorophenol and phenol efficiency by stable core@shell hybrid Ag₃PO₄@polypyrrole

In this paper, conjugated conductive polymer polypyrrole molecules were coated on Ag3PO4 nanoparticles by chemical adsorption method. The photocatalytic activity of Ag3PO4 @polypyrrole (Ag3PO4 @PPy) was enhanced significantly with introducing PPy. Under visible light, Ag3PO4 @PPy (1.5 wt%) degraded 100 % of phenol in 12 min and 98.39 % of 2,4-dichlorophenol in 24 min, which was 2.01 times and 1.89 times higher than pure Ag3PO4, respectively. In addition, the degradation activity of core-shell structure catalyst Ag3PO4@PPy remains 91.26 % after five cycles. The increased stability and activity of as-prepared core-shell Ag3PO4 @PPy was mainly attributed to the synergistic effect of Ag3PO4 and PPy. The high-stability PPy shell inhibits the dissolution of Ag3PO4 nanoparticles. The core-shell structure increases the contact area and a chemical bond was formed on the interface. In addition, the matched energy level structure and the outstanding charge transfer ability of PPy conjugated large pi bond accelerates the photo-generated charge separation thereby improves the photoactivity and stability of Ag3PO4.