Facile synthesis of tetrahedral Ag3PO4 mesocrystals and its enhanced photocatalytic activity

• Main Authors: Dong, Pengyu, Yin, Yao, Xu, Ning, Guan, Rongfeng, Hou, Guihua, Wang, Yuhua
• Other Authors: School of Civil and Environmental Engineering
• Format: Article
• Language: English
• Published: 2015
• Subjects: DRNTU::Science::Chemistry::Physical chemistry::Catalysis
• Online Access: https://hdl.handle.net/10356/100656; http://hdl.handle.net/10220/25722
• Institution: Nanyang Technological University

A novel and rapid strategy has been developed to synthesize tetrahedral Ag3PO4 mesocrystals with the help of surfactant oleic acid. Homogeneous Ag3PO4 tetrahedron with average apex-to-apex length of 1.1 μm could be synthesized under optimized conditions. Oleic acid is considered to be essential for the formation of this homogeneous tetrahedral morphology. The as-prepared tetrahedral Ag3PO4 mesocrystals could be formed through the close-packed assembly of Ag3PO4 nanoparticles, thus the formation of tetrahedral Ag3PO4 mesocrystals is explained by the oriented aggregation mechanism based on time-dependent experiments. Furthermore, the obtained tetrahedral Ag3PO4 mesocrystals exhibit enhanced visible-light photocatalytic degradation of methylene blue (MB) and methyl orange (MO) solutions compared to the reported micro-sized spherical Ag3PO4 particles with high photocatalytic performance.