Sonochemical synthesis and characterization of Sm2CuO4 nanostructures and their application as visible-light photocatalyst for degradation of water-soluble organic pollutants

Abstract

In recent years, water contamination has become a significant crisis, and it is crucial to find new materials that can efficiently eliminate these contaminants. The current work presents the Sm2CuO4 nanophotocatalyst for the decolorization of different water-soluble organic contaminants. The fabrication of Sm2CuO4 nanostructures was achieved using a simple and rapid sonochemical pathway, resulting in an optical bandgap of 1.62 eV as determined by diffuse reflectance spectroscopy. Several factors, including different organic contaminants, organic contaminant concentrations, Sm2CuO4 dosages, and the pH of the media, were scrutinized to achieve the best efficiency. The results manifested that Sm2CuO4 was highly effective in removing different organic contaminants from water. For example, when 30 mg of Sm2CuO4 was used with 20 mg L−1 methyl orange under visible irradiation for 100 min, 91.4% of the methyl orange was destroyed. Further investigation revealed that holes (h+) were primarily responsible for pollutant photodegradation when using Sm2CuO4 as a photocatalyst. This finding suggests that Sm2CuO4 could be an excellent candidate for developing new materials to effectively remove water contaminants.