Facile synthesis of magnetically separable CoFe2O4/Ag2O/Ag2CO3 nanoheterostructures with high photocatalytic performance under visible light and enhanced stability against photodegradation

Abstract We have developed magnetically separable and reasonably stable visible light active photocatalysts containing CoFe 2 O 4 and mixture of Ag 2 O/Ag 2 CO 3 nanoheterostructures. Obtained ternary nanoheterostructures outperform previously reported magnetically separable visible light photocatalysts, showing one of the highest visible light photocatalytic dye degradation activities in water by a magnetically separable photocatalyst. Photocatalytically active part is Ag 2 O/Ag 2 CO 3 whereas the CoFe 2 O 4 mainly has stabilizing and magnetic separation functions. The Ag 2 CO 3 phase junction on Ag 2 O nanoparticle surface were obtained by straightforward phase transformation from silver oxide to silver carbonate in air due to ambient CO 2 . The phase transformation was followed using X-ray diffraction (XRD), and hard X-ray photoelectron spectroscopy (HAXPES) measurements.