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Surface Control and Photocatalytic Activity of Branched Silver Orthophosphate Dendrites
Author(s) -
Wang Jun,
Lou Sunqi,
Sun Peng,
Wang LiLi,
Teng Yiran,
Chen Mindong,
Teng Fei
Publication year - 2014
Publication title -
chemcatchem
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 1.497
H-Index - 106
eISSN - 1867-3899
pISSN - 1867-3880
DOI - 10.1002/cctc.201400064
Subject(s) - faceting , branching (polymer chemistry) , materials science , crystal growth , photocatalysis , nanotechnology , adsorption , selectivity , chemical engineering , nanomaterials , crystal (programming language) , template , chemistry , catalysis , organic chemistry , crystallography , composite material , computer science , programming language , engineering
Surface control is important to improve the adsorption, reactivity, and selectivity of materials. Limited by thermodynamic crystal habit, however, it is still a big challenge to control active surfaces simply and effectively. In this report, we introduce an innovative branching‐growth methodology to control the surfaces of Ag 3 PO 4 without the use of screening agents or templates. Typically, an in situ seed‐induced branching growth strategy is developed to achieve the surface control of silver orthophosphate, in which the crystal growth changes from mass‐transport‐limited branching growth to pH‐dependent faceting growth. As a result, numerous unprecedented, highly branched Ag 3 PO 4 dendrites have been acquired. The apparent reaction rate constants of these dendrites are 2.55–3.76 times higher than conventional cubes for the degradation of rhodamine B dye. This study provides a new, effective avenue to control the surfaces of materials, which has made a big breakthrough to the improvement of the performances of materials. This is important for us to obtain materials or devices with greatly improved performances.