Photocatalytic Activity of Silver-Based Biomimetics Composites

Different Ag@TiO(2) and Ag@ZnO catalysts, with nanowire (NW) structure, were synthesized containing different amounts of silver loading (1, 3, 5, and 10 wt.%) and characterized by FE-SEM, HRTEM, BET, XRD, Raman, XPS, and UV–vis. The photocatalytic activity of the composites was studied by the production of hydrogen via water splitting under UV–vis light and the degradation of the antibiotic ciprofloxacin. The maximum hydrogen production of all the silver-based catalysts was obtained with a silver loading of 10 wt.% under irradiation at 500 nm. Moreover, 10%Ag@TiO(2) NWs was the catalyst with the highest activity in the hydrogen production reaction (1119 µmol/hg), being 18 times greater than the amount obtained with the pristine TiO(2) NW catalyst. The most dramatic difference in hydrogen production was obtained with 10%Ag@TiO(2)-P25, 635 µmol/hg, being 36 times greater than the amount reported for the unmodified TiO(2)-P25 (18 µmol/hg). The enhancement of the catalytic activity is attributed to a synergism between the silver nanoparticles incorporated and the high surface area of the composites. In the case of the degradation of ciprofloxacin, all the silver-based catalysts degraded more than 70% of the antibiotic in 60 min. The catalyst that exhibited the best result was 3%Ag@ZnO commercial, with 99.72% of degradation. The control experiments and stability tests showed that photocatalysis was the route of degradation and the selected silver-based catalysts were stable after seven cycles, with less than 1% loss of efficiency per cycle. These results suggest that the catalysts could be employed in additional cycles without the need to be resynthesized, thus reducing remediation costs.