Photocatalytic degradation efficiency of Rhodamine-B for CuO/CdO nanosheets attained through simple co-precipitation method

Abstract

In the present investigation, the growth of CuO/CdO nanosheets by simple coprecipitation method and characterized by XRD, SEM with EDX, TEM, UV–visible and PL. The incorporation of the non-ionic surfactant Triton X-100 blend with CuO/CdO resulted in hexagonal shaped grains with a nanoporous structure. The pristine CuO and CdO display monoclinic and cubic phases, respectively, whereas the CuO/CdO exhibits a combination of two phases, as proven by XRD analysis. According to TEM analysis the CuO/CdO composite particle size was reduced in the range between 20 and 50 nm resulting, the bandgap value is decreased around 1.26 eV due to size effect. The photocatalytic activity against Rhodamine-B (RhB) showed a 94 % degradation efficiency as compared to pristine CuO (71.42 %) and CdO (77.83 %). Furthermore, the CuO/CdO nanocomposite catalyst dosage increasing the degradation efficiency was found to be 97.62 %. Although the nitration process is more efficient at pH 6, the degradation efficiency for CuO, CdO, and CuO/CdO was found to be 75.74, 85.96 %, and 99.88 % at pH 6. In acidic solution, the reusability of CuO/CdO was outstanding with a 95.80 % degradation efficiency after five successive cycles.

Keywords

• CuO/CdO
• Dye degradation
• Photocatalysis
• TEM
• XRD