Abstract
Photocatalytic degradation of several harmful organic compounds has been presented as a potential approach to detoxify water in recent decades. Trypan Blue (TB) is an acidic azo dye used to distinguish live cells from dead ones and it's classified as a carcinogenic dye. In this study, silver phosphate (Ag(3)PO(4)) nanoparticles and novel Ag(3)PO(4)/graphene/SiO(2) nanocomposite have been successfully prepared via simple precipitation method. Afterward, their physical properties, chemical composition, and morphology have been characterized using SEM, EDS, TEM, SAED, BET, XRD, FTIR and UV-VIS spectroscopy. The specific surface area of Ag(3)PO(4) and Ag(3)PO(4)/G/SiO(2) nanocomposite were reported to be 1.53 and 84.97 m(2)/g, respectively. The band gap energy of Ag(3)PO(4) and Ag(3)PO(4)/G/SiO(2) nanocomposite was measured to be 2.4 and 2.307 eV, respectively. Photocatalytic degradation of Trypan blue (TB) was studied at different parameters such as pH, catalyst dosage, initial concentration, and contact time. The results showed that, at initial dye concentration of 20 ppm, pH = 2, and using 0.03 g of Ag(3)PO(4)/G/SiO(2) as a photocatalyst, the degradation percent of TB dye in the aqueous solution was 98.7% within 10 min of light exposure. Several adsorption isotherms such as Langmuir, Freundlich, and Temkin adsorption isotherms have been tested in addition to the photocatalytic degradation kinetics. Both catalysts were found to follow the Langmuir isotherm model and pseudo-second-order kinetic model. Finally, the possible photocatalytic performance mechanism of Ag(3)PO(4)/G/SiO(2) was proposed.