To realize the high-efficiency plasmonic hot-electron injection in photocatalytic pollutant elimination, Ag/g-C3N4 heterostructure photocatalyst was synthesized through a novel in situ photochemical solid-phase reduction approach. Transmission electron microscope images of the obtained samples showed that Ag atom was uniformly dispersed on the surface of g-C3N4 sheet, thus can fully utilize the local surface plasmon resonance of metallic Ag and then improve the photocatalytic performance of Ag/g-C3N4. It is reported that Ag/g-C3N4 heterojunction presented significantly enhanced sunlight absorption and inhibited the recombination of photoinduced carriers, and further reinforced the photocatalytic performance of g-C3N4 substrate. The 3 wt%-Ag/g-C3N4 exhibited the best catalytic activity toward rhodamine B (RhB) and phenol degradation under visible light irradiation, with apparent rate constants of 0.016 and 0.018 min−1, which was 8 and 10 times that of pure g-C3N4, respectively. This work supplied an advanced approach for constructing efficient solar light-driven photocatalysts, which would be making a certain contribution to the control of water pollution.
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