Enhancement of the visible light activity and stability of Ag2CO3 by formation of AgI/Ag2CO3 heterojunction

•A novel AgI/Ag2CO3 heterojunction was prepared via coprecipitation process.•AgI/Ag2CO3 heterojunction increase e−/h+ pairs separation.•The production of •OH and O2•− radicals was promoted.•High photocatalytic activity and stability were obtained over AgI/Ag2CO3. An insurmountable problem for silver-based semiconductor photocatalysts is their poor stability. Here, at room temperature, AgI with different concentrations (5%, 10%, 20% and 30%) were coupled into Ag2CO3, producing a series of novel AgI/Ag2CO3 composite photocatalysts. The effects of AgI addition on the Ag2CO3 catalyst for photocatalytic degradation of methyl orange (MO) under visible light irradiation have been investigated. Some physicochemical technologies like N2 physical adsorption/desorption, powder X-ray diffraction (XRD), scanning electron microscopy (SEM), transmission electron microscopy (TEM), energy-dispersive X-ray (EDX) spectroscopy, X-ray photoelectron spectroscopy (XPS), and UV–vis diffuse reflectance spectroscopy (UV–vis DRS) were applied to characterize these products. Results show that the photocatalytic degradation activity of AgI/Ag2CO3 photocatalyst is much higher than that of pure AgI and Ag2CO3. With the optimal content of AgI (20wt%), the AgI/Ag2CO3 exhibits the highest photocatalytic degradation efficiency. Its first order reaction rate constant (0.54h−1) is 20 times of that of AgI (0.026h−1) and 3.6 times of that of Ag2CO3 (0.15h−1). The characterizations and theory calculation show that AgI and Ag2CO3 have suitably matched band gap structures. The formation of AgI/Ag2CO3 heterojunction with intimate interface could effectively increase the separation efficiency of the e−/h+ pairs and promote the production of •OH and O2•− radicals, which brings about the fast degradation rate of the dye and an increase in photocatalytic stability.