Preparation of silver/graphene/polymer hybrid microspheres and the study of photocatalytic degradation

Three-dimensional silver/graphene/polymer hybrid microspheres were prepared to depress the aggregation of two-dimensional graphene. Graphene oxide (GO) sheets were successfully wrapped on the surface of amine-functionalized polystyrene-poly (glycidyl methacrylate) (PS-PGMA) microspheres (∼3 μm in diameter) to form graphene oxide/amino-microsphere (GO/AMS) core–shell structure. Subsequently, the wrapped GO sheets were reduced by using hydrazine hydrate as the reducing agents, meanwhile decorated with silver nanoparticles on the wrinkled surface to form Ag-rGO/AMS hybrid microspheres with monodisperse distributions in shape and diameter. The resulting materials were characterized by power X-ray diffraction, scanning electron microscope, Raman spectra, and ultraviolet–visible (UV–vis) absorption spectra. Since Ag nanoparticles behave surface plasmon resonance effect and rGO structure can improve the separation of photogenerated electrons and holes, the Ag-rGO/AMS composites present good photocatalytic activities for the degradation of methylene blue (MB) as 93 % MB were degraded after 2.5 h under irradiation.