Construction of Highly Condensed Cu₂O/CuO Composites on Cu Sheet and Its Photocatalytic in Photodegradation of Hazardous Colouring Agent Rose Bengal

Abstract

Binary copper oxides with different copper ion oxidation states including cuprous Cu₂O and cupric CuO have already been successfully synthesized by the simple and highly repeatable grow-up technique from the modified copper Cu sheet. By controlling the annealing time and temperature, the copper oxide (CuO, Cu₂O) composites were hierarchically formed on Cu surface. All obtained samples were characterized using X-ray diffraction (XRD) spectroscopy and scanning electron microscopy (SEM). The results showed that the modified Cu sheets after annealing in air yielded the mixture of CuO and Cu₂O phases. The obtained Cu₂O/CuO composites have been used as active photocatalysts to decolourize the 10 ppm dyes rose bengal solution with the degradation efficiency of 73% over a period of 3 h under UV-A irradiation after three uses. These results make them attractive as reusable photocatalytic materials in form of flat sheet. The other testing conditions as pH values and oxidant agent (H₂O₂) was carried out. It was observed that the photodegradation achieved up to 96% with the presence of H₂O₂.