Construction of AgIn₅S₈/gC₃N₄ composite and its enhanced photocatalytic hydrogen production and degradation of organic pollutants under visible light irradiation

Photocatalysis has received tremendous attention among researchers due to its practical usage of solar energy in the field of degradation of toxic pollutants and energy harvesting. In this work, we reported an AgIn₅S₈/gC₃N₄ composite as visible light active photocatalyst for hydrogen production and toxic pollutants degradation. Furthermore, the synthesized composites were properly investigated by X-ray diffraction (XRD), transmission electron microscopy (TEM), X-ray photoelectron spectroscopy (XPS), UV–visible diffuse reflectance spectroscopy (UV–vis DRS) and electrochemical impedance spectroscopy (EIS) measurement. The visible light photocatalytic performance was investigated through the degradation of a cationic dye Rhodamine B (RhB) dye from aqueous solution. The photocatalytic hydrogen production results show that AgIn₅S₈ loaded with 25% of g-C₃N₄ exhibited higher hydrogen production rate than pure AgIn₅S₈ and g-C₃N₄. All the obtained outputs showed that the combination of AgIn₅S₈ and gC₃N₄ could exhibit excellent visible light response and better charge separation behaviour, which leads to better photocatalytic performance in AgIn₅S₈/gC₃N₄ composite system. Furthermore, AgIn₅S₈/gC₃N₄ composite photocatalyst retains good stability in the performance of consecutive cycle usage. The plausible mechanism of the photocatalytic reactions was also studied and explained.