Band structure tuning of ZnO/CuO composites for enhanced photocatalytic activity

The toxic dye pigments, even in small quantities, can damage ecosystems. Removing organic, inorganic, and microbiological contaminants from wastewater via heterogeneous photo -catalysis is a promising method. Herein, we report the band structure tuning of ZnO/CuO nanocomposites to enhance photocatalytic activity. The nanocomposites were synthesized by a chemical approach using step-wise implantation of p-type semiconductor CuO to n-type semicon-ductor ZnO. Various characterization techniques such as X-ray diffraction analysis (XRD), field emission scanning electron microscopy (FESEM), energy dispersive X-ray analysis (EDX) and UV spectroscopy were used to investigate the crystal structure, surface morphology, elemental com-position and optical properties of the synthesized samples. As the CuO content increased from 10% to 50% in ZnO/CuO nanocomposites, the optical bandgap decreased from 3.36 to 2.14 eV. The photocatalytic activity of the samples was evaluated against the degradation of methylene blue (MB) under visible irradiation. Our study demonstrates a novel p-n junction oxide photocatalyst based on wt. 10% CuO/ZnO with superior photocatalytic activity. Effectively 66.6% increase in degradation rate was achieved for wt. 10% CuO/ZnO nanocomposite compared to pure ZnO nanoparticles. & COPY; 2023 The Author(s). Published by Elsevier B.V. on behalf of King Saud University. This is an open access article under the CC BY-NC-ND license (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/4.0/).