Origin of Cycle Performance in the Ag₂O/TiO₂ Heterostructure Photocatalyst

In recent years, many studies on photocatalysis focused on improving efficiency. However, the cycle performance is also an important index for industrialization. Here, an Ag₂O/TiO₂ heterostructure photocatalyst is prepared for continuous photodegradation of methylene blue (MB) under visible light, and the samples after the first and fifth round reactions are recycled to study the microstructure evolution of the photocatalyst. The results show that the performance is obviously improved in the second round and remains stable in the following reaction round. Due to the charge transfer, Ag₂O/TiO₂ gradually changes to Ag₂O@Ag-TiO_2- during the photocatalytic reaction. The resulting localized surface plasmon resonance effect and the change of the interface structure greatly increase the number of carriers and prolong the lifetime of carriers. Such variations of microstructures and photoelectric properties of the samples due to the charge transfer and redox reaction on the surface of the photocatalyst dominate the cycle performance.