High-efficiency photocatalytic performance and mechanism of silver-based metal–organic framework

Environmental pollution and energy shortages seriously restrict the development of society. Photocatalytic oxidation technology can directly use solar energy to drive a series of chemical reactions. It has the advantages of low energy consumption, mild reaction conditions, and no secondary pollution, and is an effective method to solve organic pollutions in water. The key to achieve this process is to find and design efficient photocatalytic materials. In this paper, a novel silver-based metal–organic framework (Ag-MOF) [{Ag(H2btc)}{Ag2(Hbtc)}]n(1) (H3btc = 1,3,5-trimesic acid) is designed that exhibits a high performance in the photocatalytic degradation of methylene blue (MB). The process of photocatalytic degradation of MB conforms to pseudo first-order kinetics, and the rate is the fastest at pH 3 (K= 0.2654). Meanwhile, the photocatalytic mechanism of 1 is analyzed by in situ electron paramagnetic resonance (EPR) and ESI-MS spectra. The results are helpful for in situ research of the photocatalytic mechanism of MOFs.