Facile Solution-Processed Semiconductor/Metal Hybrid Nanoporous Materials; their Highly Photoredox Catalytic Power

Designing a photoredox material with highly efficient organic pollutant degradation ability and cost effectiveness is challenging. Conventional photoredox materials have inherent drawbacks, including high cost, low photon-to-electron conversion rates, and low effective surface area. Herein, an alternative nanoporous semiconductor/metal hybrid (CuO-Ag) photoredox catalysis material with all solution processes is developed to circumvent these shortcomings. The obtained results evidently indicate that the loading of Ag onto the CuO nanoporous material leads to improving the Brunauer–Emmett–Teller (BET) specific surface area (48.369 m² g⁻¹) with pore size (36.436 nm) and pore's volume (0.301 cm³ g⁻¹) of CuO-Ag nanoporsity. The improved semiconductor/metal hybrid surface area and porosity significantly enhance the photocatalytic efficiency (i.e., ≈99% degradation of RhB and 4-NP), owing to the synergy effect. Additionally, the decoration of metal nanostructure enables to enhance photo-absorption and the semiconductor/metal heterojunction is useful to enhance photo-excited electron and hole charge carriers separation. Such structure-designed CuO-Ag nanoporous materials maintain high photostability during long light irradiation conditions. The photocatalytic efficiency is better than all published reports. This strategy using hybrid semiconductor/metal nanoporous material with high surface area and greater porosity improved activity significantly offers a facile guideline for targeting photoredox catalysis applications.