Non-woven polyester fabric-supported cuprous oxide/reduced graphene oxide nanocomposite for photocatalytic degradation of methylene blue

Abstract

Graphene oxide (GO) and reduced GO (rGO) have become the most exciting material in the applications for photocatalysts. However, the GO composite film-based high-activity photocatalyst is usually not durable in aqueous solution. Therefore, in this paper, the non-woven polyester fabric (NWPF)-supported cuprous oxide nanoparticles (Cu2O) decorated on rGO (Cu2O/rGO@NWPF) membrane were suggested to synthesize via chemical reduction method. The Cu2O/rGO@NWPF nanocomposite was characterized by X-ray diffraction, transmission electron microscopy, Raman spectroscopy, Fourier transform infrared spectroscopy, Brunauer–Emmett–Teller method, and energy-dispersive X-ray spectroscopy analysis. The combination of rGO and Cu2O particles supported on NWPF exhibited enhanced photocatalytic degradation of methylene blue (MB) under solar light and achieved 96% of MB removal efficiency in 120 min. The photocatalytic mechanism and the synergistic effects between Cu2O nanoparticles and rGO sheets were comprehensively investigated. The Cu2O/rGO@NWPF catalyst showed excellent stability with retained catalytic activity in four consecutive recycles. The obtained results indicated that the Cu2O/rGO@NWPF composite has a good application potential to large-scale water treatment at lakes or rivers.