CuMn2O4/Mn2O3 micro composites: Sol- gel synthesis in the presence of sucrose and investigation of their photocatalytic properties

The treatment of effluents using adsorption of pollution of solvent is a necessary aspect of research. The use of photocatalysts for this purpose has received much attention from researchers. In current research, the micro composites based on copper manganese oxides were synthesized through sol-gel method and used as photocatalyst. The uniformity, structure, shape, and size of the products are affected by metal salt type, fuel type, annealing temperature and time. The metal nitrate salts, sucrose, 850 & iota; and 2 h were selected as optimum precursors, fuel, annealing temperature and time, respectively. XRD indicated the successful formation of CMO/MO MCs in the presence of sucrose after annealing at 850 C for 2 h. VSM showed a ferromagnetic behavior with a coercivity of 970.56 Oe. To investigation of the photocatalytic properties of CMO/MO MCs, several factors, including different organic contaminants, organic contaminant concentrations, and micro composite dosages were scrutinized to achieve the best efficiency. The photocatalytic tests indicated that micro composites can degrade RBBR in high values. For example, when 0.03 g of micro composite was used with 10 ppm RBBR under visible irradiation for 90 min, 79.18% of RBBR was destroyed. The hydroxyl radicals and holes were found to be active agents implicated in the degradation of RBBR by the scavenger's test. The recycle test unveiled that micro composites are so stable and after six cycles, the photocatalyst efficiency decreased by 12% for RBBR.& 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/).