Abstract
Highly efficient photocatalysis of methylene blue dye has been demonstrated using hierarchical copper oxide and zinc oxide (CuO-ZnO) nanoflower like structure. The flower like nanostructures are obtained using polyethylene glycol and sodium citrate with facile single step hydrothermal method. The effect of different operating parameters viz. effect of OH− ion concentration, metal ion precursor and synthesis method on typical morphology of the CuO-ZnO product has been studied in detail. The synthesized samples were characterized by various techniques and were then used in sunlight driven degradation of methylene blue dye. The photocatalytic performance of selected CuO-ZnO product (sample CZ-01) demonstrated the best photocatalytic activity under sunlight irradiation with rate constant of approximately 0.099 min-1. The superior photocatalytic performance of CuO-ZnO was attributed to suppressed charge-carrier recombination. Methylene blue dye (100 mL of 100 ppm) was observed to be completely degraded in 30 min with CuO-ZnO (sample CZ-01) hierarchical nanostructure as catalyst.
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