Study on Fabrication and investigation of the effects of copper salt precursor with different anions SO42-, Cl-, CH3COO- and NO3- on the structure and photocatalytic properties for decomposition of methyl orange dye of octahedral Cu2O nanoparticles
The octahedra single-phase Cu2O nanoparticles were fabricated from copper salts precursors with different anions including SO42-, Cl-, CH3COO- and NO3-. The prepared materials were characterized by: XRD, Raman shift, SEM, solid UV-vis absorption spectra. The photocatalytic activity and decomposition reaction kinetics for methyl orange dye of the prepared Cu2O samples under visible light irradiation were also studied in this experiment. The results showed that the fabricated Cu2O materials all had a nanometer-sized crystal particles arranged in about of 300-1000 nm with the octahedral particle shape. The narrow optical gap energy of Cu2O samples achieved Eg» 1.83-2.01 eV. The fabricated Cu2O samples all had the high photocatalytic efficiency in decomposition of methyl orange dye (MO) under visible light when added with H2O2 assisted catalyst. The photocatalytic efficiency of the Cu2O-(SO42-)/H2O2 sample was the highest, reaching 99.2% with the rate constant k= 0.10132 min-1. The photocatalytic efficiency of the Cu2O-(CH3COO-)/H2O2 sample was the smallest, reaching 97.6% with the rate constant k= 0.09098 min-1