Exceptional photocatalytic activity for Ag,Cr- SrTiO3 activated by H2O2 for removal of organic pollutants

Abstract

Ag,Cr-SrTiO3 nanocomposite was successfully prepared through the one-pot situ solvothermal method by using butyl titanate, CrCl3•6H2O and Sr(NO3)2 as raw materials. The obtained nanocomposites were characterized by x-ray diffraction, scanning electron microscopy and x-ray photoelectron spectroscopy. UV-visible diffuse reflectance spectroscopy was used to investigate the optical properties and the results demonstrated the extension of spectral response from ultraviolet to visible light region. Compared with pure SrTiO3, Ag,Cr-SrTiO3 exhibited remarkable enhancement in adsorption and photocatalytic ability. More importantly, samples activated by H2O2 revealed extraordinary photocatalytic activity, which could remove 98.8% of MO within 60 min with 0.4 wt% Ag,Cr-SrTiO3. This work not only indicates that Ag,Cr-SrTiO3 is a desired photocatalytic material to degrade of organic pollutants under enlarging response range of solar light, but also shows that the addition of H2O2 can promote the photodegradation reaction.