Abstract
Highly uniformed decorations of Cu2O nanoparticles on the sidewalls of silicon nanowires (SiNWs) with high aspect ratio were prepared through a two-step electroless deposition at room temperature. Morphology evolutions and photocatalytic performance of SiNWs decorated with aggregated and dispersed Cu2O nanoparticles were unveiled, and the correlated photodegradation kinetics was identified. In comparison with the conventional direct loadings where the aggregated Cu2O/SiNW structures were created, the uniform incorporation of Cu2O with SiNWs exhibited more than three and nine times of improved photodegradation efficiency than the aggregated-Cu2O/SiNWs and sole SiNWs, respectively.
Highlights
Cu2O nanostructures, with direct band gap energy of 2.0–2.2 eV, have been emerged as the efficient photocatalytic materials that could decompose the organic pollutants directly through the activation of visible light [1,2,3,4]
It resulted in the Cu aggregations on the top surfaces of silicon nanowires (SiNWs)
The diffusion of Cu2+/HF reactants turned to hardly reach the bottom sides of SiNWs owing to the involved steric hindrance of the existed Cu nanoparticles
Summary
Cu2O nanostructures, with direct band gap energy of 2.0–2.2 eV, have been emerged as the efficient photocatalytic materials that could decompose the organic pollutants directly through the activation of visible light [1,2,3,4].
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