facile ultrasonic-assisted preparation of fe3o4/ag3vo4 nanocomposites as magnetically recoverable visible-light-driven photocatalysts with considerable activity

In this work, a facile ultrasonic-assisted method was applied for preparation of fe3o4/ag3vo4 nanocomposites with different compositions. the as-prepared products were characterized by x-ray diffraction, scanning electron microscopy, transmission electron microscopy, energy-dispersive analysis of x-rays, uv–vis diffuse reflectance spectroscopy, fourier transform infrared spectroscopy, and vibrating sample magnetometery. photocatalytic degradation of rhodamine b under visible-light irradiation was investigated, and it was found that weight ratio of fe3o4–ag3vo4 has significant influence on the photocatalytic activity and the nanocomposite with 1:4 weight ratio of fe3o4–ag3vo4 has superior activity. in addition, the nanocomposite showed great activities in degradations of methylene blue and fuchsine, which are comparable with activity of the pure ag3vo4. more importantly, this nanocomposite displayed remarkable saturation magnetization, leading to easily and quickly separation of its suspension from treated system by applying a magnetic field.