This study reports a visible light-driven plasmonic photocatalyst of Au deposited AgVO₃ nanocomposites prepared by a hydrothermal method, and further in situ modification of Au nanoparticles by a reducing agent of NaHSO₃ in an aqueous solution at room temperature. Various characterization techniques, such as SEM, TEM, XRD, EDS, XPS, and Brunauer-Emmett-Teller, were used to reveal the morphology, composition, and related properties. The results show that belt-like AgVO₃ nanoparticles with a width of ∼100 nm were successfully synthesized, and Au nanoparticles with controlled sizes (5-20 nm) were well distributed on the surface of the nanobelts. The UV-vis absorption spectra indicate that the decoration of Au nanoparticles can modulate the optical properties of the nanocomposites, namely, red shift occurs with the increase of Au content. The photocatalytic activities were measured by monitoring the degradation of Rhodamine B (RhB) with the presence of photocatalysts under visible light irradiation. The photodegradation results show that AgVO₃ nanobelts exhibit good visible light photocatalytic activities with a degradation efficiency of 98% in 50 min and a reaction rate constant of 0.025 min^-1 towards 30 ppm RhB. With the modification of Au nanoparticles, photocatalytic activity basically increases with the molar ratio of Au to V. Among the Au@AgVO₃ nanocomposites, the 3% (molar ratio) Au decorated AgVO₃ nanobelts showed the highest photocatalytic activity, and the k (0.064 min^-1) was almost two times higher than that of the pure AgVO₃ nanobelts. This can be attributed to several factors including specific surface areas, optical properties, and the energy band structure of the composites under visible light illumination. These findings may be useful for the practical use of visible light-driven photocatalysts with enhanced photocatalytic efficiencies for environmental remediation.

#	Concept	H-Index	Publications	Citations
1	Engineering	1	1	16
2	Chemistry	1	1	16
3	Nanomaterials	1	1	16
4	Nanotechnology	1	1	16

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