Development of a crystalline n-AgBr/p-NiO binary heterojunction for photocatalytic degradation of organic contaminants with accompanying mineralization, adsorption, and antimicrobial studies.

A highly effective and unique AgBr-NiO binary heterojunction was developed using an effective one-pot sol-gel method. The physicochemical properties of the produced materials were carefully examined using analytical techniques, including X-ray diffraction (XRD), scanning electron microscopy (SEM), energy dispersive X-ray (EDX) analysis, transmission electron microscopy (TEM), Brunauer-Emmett-Teller (BET), ultraviolet-visible diffuse reflectance spectroscopy (UV-vis-DRS), Fourier transform infrared spectroscopy (FTIR), and photoluminescence (PL). The mesoporous nature and high surface properties of AgBr-NiO were revealed by the BET analysis. The AgBr-NiO composite showed greater photocatalytic degradation efficiency than bare AgBr and NiO when exposed to visible light for the colored anionic dye rhodamine B (RhB) and bisphenol A (BPA), a colorless endocrine-disrupting contaminant (EDC), resulting in high photocatalytic activity for the degradation of RhB (97.6% in 11 min) and BPA (85% in 120 min). Additionally, a notable decrease in TOC over time was observed under similar reaction conditions in the photo-mineralization examination of both model pollutants. Trapping tests were conducted to determine which reactive oxygen species (ROS) were involved in the degradation process. A plausible Z-scheme mechanism for this n-p heterojunction was proposed to explain the formation of e/h pairs induced by visible light. The proposed work facilitates the development of a recyclable photocatalyst characterized by high biological activity and low toxicity.