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Enhanced photocatalytic degradation of methylene blue in aqueous solution by Cu/ZnO photocatalyst

WANG WEILIANG1,* , YANG CHUANXI2, ZHANG FEN3, CUI GUANWEI4

Affiliation

  1. College of Geography and Environment, Shandong Normal University, Jinan 250014, China
  2. College of Resources and Environmental Sciences, China Agricultural University, Beijing 100193, China
  3. Party School of the Shandong Committee of the Communist Party of China, Jinan 250013, China
  4. Key Laboratory of Molecular and Nano Probes, Ministry of Education, Shandong Normal University, Jinan, 250014, China

Abstract

In order to improve the photocatalytic activity of ZnO nanorod, the Cu/ZnO nanorod was modified by copper sulfate (CuSO4) and ZnO nanorod. Transmission electron microscope (TEM) was carried out to characterize the composites with different Cu contents, indicating that the modification does not alter the length and diameter of ZnO nanorod. The photocatalytic degradation of methylene blue (MB) was chosen as a model reaction to evaluate the photocatalytic activities of ZnO and Cu/ZnO nanorod. Cu/ZnO shows significantly higher photocatalytic activity (kapp = 0.0402 min-1) than ZnO nanorod (kapp = 0.0172 min-1) under sunlight irradiation. The degradation of MB accords with pseudo-first order kinetics, and the appear rate constants kapp of 7% Cu/ZnO nanorod was about 2.3 times higher than ZnO nanorod. The optimum synergetic effect was found at a weight ratio of 7.0 wt % (Cu/ZnO), and the optimum synergetic factor was 2.34..

Keywords

ZnO nanorod, Cu/ZnO nanorod, Photocatalytic activity, Synergetic effect.

Citation

WANG WEILIANG, YANG CHUANXI, ZHANG FEN, CUI GUANWEI, Enhanced photocatalytic degradation of methylene blue in aqueous solution by Cu/ZnO photocatalyst, Optoelectronics and Advanced Materials - Rapid Communications, 11, 1-2, January-February 2017, pp.96-100 (2017).

Submitted at: Aug. 27, 2015

Accepted at: Feb. 10, 2017