Facile synthesis of graphene oxide-enwrapped Ag₃PO₄ composites with highly efficient visible light photocatalytic performance

Graphene oxide (GO)-enwrapped Ag₃PO₄ composites were successfully fabricated by the electrostatically-driven assembly of positively charged silver ions on the negatively charged GO sheets, followed by the controlled growth of sphere-like Ag₃PO₄ particles on GO sheets via an in-situ ion-exchange method. Moreover, GO-Ag₃PO ₄ composites were fully characterized and the visible light photocatalytic performance of the GO-Ag₃PO₄ sample was investigated. The results indicated that the presence of GO sheets could effectively tailor the size of Ag₃PO₄ particles, GO-Ag₃PO₄ composites exhibited excellent visible-light absorption, and the photocatalytic degradation efficiency of Rhodamine B (RhB) over GO-Ag₃PO₄ composites is apparently higher than with pure Ag₃PO₄ mainly due to the photo-induced holes and the generation of irradiated active superoxide radicals.