A silver-based coordination polymer with phenylacetylene ligands for efficient visible light photocatalysis

A type of organic coordination polymer photocatalyst (PhC2Ag) that can respond to visible light was synthesized. The PhC2Ag with nanorods structure has good hydrophobicity and was reported in eliminating organic pollutants for the first time. The characterization results indicate that PhC2Ag has photoexcited carrier separation ability with the band gap of 2.63 eV. Experimental results indicate that the dominant active species in the PhC2Ag photocatalytic system are the superoxide radical and hydroxyl radical. First-principles theoretical calculations revealed that effective mass of photogenerated electrons is smaller and has better migration ability. This work provides support for the application of PhC2Ag and its subsequent modified materials in energy and environmental fields such as photocatalytic degradation, hydrogen evolution, and hydrogen peroxide production.