Visible light‐Driven AgBr/AgCl@MIL‐101(Fe) Composites For Removal of Organic Contaminant From Wastewater

Microwave-solvothermal synthesized MIL-101(Fe) was successfully loaded by silver halides (AgCl and AgBr) by simple precipitation method. The XRD, FESEM mapping, XPS and DRS measurements reveal the successful fabrication of composite photocatalyst. The results suggested that silver halides altered surface charge, surface area and pore size distribution of MIL-101(Fe). The 20%AgBr@MIL-101(Fe) composite has strong tendency to remove the cationic/anionic dyes (96% of rhodamine B, 100% of malachite green and 92% of methyl orange) from wastewater after 30 min of adsorption and 90 min under visible light irradiation. The composite photocatalyst revealed the photodegradation stability up to four cycles. The formation of mesopores improves the adsorption ability of the composites for large organic molecules, while loaded silver halides might inhibit the recombination of electron-hole pairs; those were responsible for enhancing the photocatalytic degradation of organic pollutants. ESR suggested O2·- , ·OH were responsible for dye degradation in visible light by composite photocatalysts. The photocatalytic mechanism of the composite was also explained in this work.