Preparation of Cu2O/ZnO nanocomposites for visible light photocatalytic activity for methylene blue degradation

In this work, simple and low-cost hydrothermal synthesis of Cu2O/ZnO nanocomposites with good photocatalytic activity under visible light irradiation was fully investigated. The effect of various molar ratio of copper nitrate and zinc acetate (1:1, 1:2 and 2:1) as precursor on the morphology, crystallinity and functional group were studied. Scanning electron microscope (SEM), fourier transform infrared spectroscopy (FTIR), x-ray diffraction (XRD) and UV-Vis spectrophotometer were used for characterizations. FESEM results indicate that the nanoflake-like structure with thickness of 130, 115 and 133 nm for 1:1, 1:2 and 2:1 samples. FTIR revealed that the formation of Cu was incorporated into ZnO and XRD analysis described the higher crystallinity of 1:2 samples without any other impurities. Accordingly, photocatalytic degradation of MB was achieved at 96% with 1:2 photocatalyst sample under 120 min of visible light irradiation. Our finding demonstrate that Cu2O/ZnO (1:2) can be potentially used as photocatalyst for effective degradation of methylene blue dye.