Fabrication of a heterostructure composite with CuO and FeS2 as efficient photocatalyst for decolourisation of brilliant green

Abstract

Dye pollutants are most dangerous parameter to pollute water results health issues, significantly Brilliant green (BG) dye causes irritation, burning eyes or skin, nausea, diarrhea, abdominal pain and vomiting. Hence, there is a demand to develop cost-effective, simple and efficient photocatalyst for deterioration of BG dye from its contaminated water. In this study, a fabrication of metal oxide and metal sulphide (CuO-FeS2) via a simple, facile hydrothermal route is reported. This mixed composite brings new, hybrid and most efficient properties towards the greater catalytic activity. However, the formation of desirable composite was confirmed by XRD patters, EDX and XPS analysis. The Brilliant green (BG) dye was completely decolourised by characterized CuO-FeS2 composite in 90 min. This may be due to fabrication of heterostructure composite results in bringing their tremendous properties to degrade BG dye in a large scale. This is proved by the addition of CuO (8.6 nm) to FeS2 (28.6 nm) resulting the size in decrease of composite (24.2 nm), thus it possess higher photocatalytic activity. So, this study favours the formation of more efficient heterostructure composites for better photocatalytic performance.

Keywords

• CuO-FeS2
• Hydrothermal
• Photocatalysis
• Brilliant green