Thin film photocatalyst made from Fe2O3/2D graphene/Cu working in the visible region of the solar spectrum

Abstract

A novel thin film photocatalytic system, Fe2O3/Graphene supported by copper foil as a flexible substrate was produced in this study. Graphene was synthesized by using the chemical vapor deposition technique in a quartz tubular furnace. Fe2O3 catalyst layer was deposited by using magnetron sputtering technique. The catalyst was characterized by SEM, EDS, XRD, Confocal Raman spectroscopy, UV–vis diffuse reflectance spectroscopy and atomic force microscopy (AFM) methods. As inferred from the Raman spectrum, graphene was obtained as completely defect free and monolayer form. Fe2O3 layer was successfully coated on the graphene without amorphous region. Total surface roughness value was 852 nm which was determined by AFM in a 50 μm2 area. Photocatalytic activity of the system was followed by hydrogen peroxide decomposition under 14 W LED light bulb and the resulting product of the degradation namely oxygen gas was measured to numerically define the photocatalytic activity. As a result, graphene increased the activity by a factor 4. Hydrogen peroxide degradation produced 41 μ mole cm−2min−1 oxygen gas. This study demonstrated that graphene could be used an efficient charge carrier material to eliminate commonly known drawbacks of Fe2O3 to utilize it as a low cost visible active photocatalyst.