Facile regeneration and photocatalytic activity of CuO-modified silver bromide photocatalyst

CuO-modified silver bromide (AgBr/CuO) crystal was successful synthesized by a facile method at room temperature. The physical and chemical properties of AgBr/CuO crystals were carefully detected through X-ray diffraction (XRD), UV–vis diffuse reflectance spectroscopy (DRS), field emission scanning electron microscopy (FESEM), X-ray photoelectron spectroscopy (XPS), photoluminescence (PL) and Electron spin resonance (ESR) techniques. The photocatalytic activity and stability of AgBr/CuO hybrid were evaluated by photocatalytic degradation of methyl orange (MO) under visible light irradiation. The AgBr/CuO sample exhibited high photocatalytic activity, degrading 92% MO after irradiation for 40 min, which was 3.8 times higher than that of pure AgBr. Both the experimental scavenging results and characterization results revealed that O2− acts as the main active specie. Based on above, the high photocatalytic performance is mainly attributed to the abundant of oxygen vacancies, and which further generate lots of superoxide radicals. Moreover, the method by using bromide water to rejuvenate AgBr/CuO could well maintain the photocatalytic activity and stability without any environment pollution.