Fabrication of silica supported Turkevich silver nanocomposites for efficient photocatalytic performance

Abstract Herein, a novel approach is reported to design metallodielectric silica (SiO2) supported Turkevich silver nanoparticles (Ag NPs) for direct fabrication of SiO2/Ag nanocomposites (NCs). The technique utilizes electrostatic interaction of ex situ synthesized amine-functionalized positively-charged SiO2 NPs and citrate-capped negatively-charged Ag NPs. The formation of nanoparticles was confirmed using various analytical techniques and explored for photocatalytic degradation of methyl orange (MO) at ambient temperature under sunlight irradiation. SiO2/Ag-NCs showed significant degradation of MO (94.50% in 40 min) with an estimated apparent degradation rate of 6.9 ×10−2 min−1, can be attributed to efficient charge separation by Ag NPs decorated on SiO2 NPs. This strategy may offer innovative considerations for the design of photocatalyst/carrier nanocomposites.