Facile construction of an Ag0-doped Ag(I)-based coordination polymer via a self-photoreduction strategy for enhanced visible light driven photocatalysis

Owing to their uniformly separated metal sites and regular structures, Ag(I)-based coordination polymers (CPs) have been considered as promising platforms for plasmonic photocatalysts. Herein, a novel Ag(I)-CP [Ag2(NO2-bdc)(4,4′-bpy)2]·2CH3CN·2.5H2O (JLNU-90, NO2-bdc = 4-nitrophthalic acid, 4,4′-bpy = 4,4′-bipyridine) has been synthesized at room temperature. By using a self-photoreduction strategy, some Ag(I) sites in CPs are reduced to metallic Ag0 and Ag0-doped JLNU-90/x can be constructed under a mercury lamp. Photocatalytic experiments reveal that the JLNU-90/x catalysts show better photocatalytic performance for methylene blue (MB) under visible light in comparison with JLNU-90. The optimal JLNU-90/1.5 has the best performance with a degradation efficiency of 70%. The outstanding photocatalytic behaviour is mainly improved by the surface plasmon resonance (SPR) effect and the fast transfer of photogenerated carriers. The proposed mechanism systematically combines the reactive species and the band gap structures to explain the detailed photocatalytic process on JLNU-90/1.5.