Environmentally benign chitosan as reductant and supporter for synthesis of Ag/AgCl/chitosan composites by one-step and their photocatalytic degradation performance under visible-light irradiation

A novel Ag/AgCl/chitosan composite photocatalyst was successfully prepared by a simple one-step method. During this progress, environmentally benign chitosan not only served as reductant to reduce Ag+ to Ag-0 species, but also acted as supporter for Ag/AgCl nanoparticles. XRD, SEM, EDX, UV-vis DRS and XPS were employed to characterize the as-prepared simples. SEM images of Ag/AgCl/chitosan composites revealed that Ag/AgCl nanoparticles were successfully loaded onto chitosan without obvious aggregation. All Ag/AgCl/chitosan composites exhibited efficient photocatalytic activity for the degradation of rhodamine B (RhB) under visible-light irradiation. The result of photocatalytic degradation experiment indicated that 20% of the mass ratio of AgCl to chitosan was the optimum, and after 40 min photocatalytic reaction, the degradation rate reached about 96%.