Volume 11 Issue 3 ( September 2024)

Efforts to degrade liquid waste have been carried out, one of which is using photocatalyst materials. In this work, Carbon Dots (CDs) in combination with silver nanoparticles (AgNPs) were used to degrade methylene blue (MB). CDs were synthesized from urea with added citric acid using a bottom-up microwave method. While AgNPs were synthesized from silver plates using the Nd:YAG laser ablation method. The absorbance and the fluorescence spectra of CDs were observed via a UV-Vis and a 405 nm laser photoluminescence (PL) spectrophotometer, respectively. Fourier Transform Infrared (FTIR) was employed to study the CDs functional group. Meanwhile, the particle size of CDs and AgNPs was measured using Transmission Electron Microscopy (TEM). In order to observe the photocatalytic performance, CDs with various concentrations of AgNPs were dissolved in the MB solution. The influences of AgNPs on the photocatalytic performance of CDs were examined using a UV-Vis spectrophotometer. As a result, CDs with a concentration of 2 ppm were the most optimal as a catalyst with a degradation percentage of 88.8%. Moreover, adding one ppm AgNPs increased the photocatalytic activity to 93.4%.

Keywords: photocatalyst, CDs, AgNPs, methylene blue, degradation