Green synthesis, characterization and photocatalytic study of Cu based ZrO2 nanoparticles

Green synthesis has been adopted for the synthesis of Cu based ZrO2 nanoparticles via the co-precipitation method. Different mole percentage of copper was incorporated in zirconia and prepare various Cu2xZr1-xO2 (x = 0.05, 0.1, 0.2, 0.3, 0.4) nanoparticles. Among all the compositions Cu2xZr1-xO2 (x = 0.05) (CZ) exhibits higher photocatalytic activity compare to pure ZrO2 and other compositions for degradation of naphthyl orange (NO) under visible light in the aqueous medium. Most interesting that the mol% of Cu2+ ion in the mother composition is increased, the degradation rate of NO is decreased but CZ takes only 45 min to decolourize NO completely. The comparative study was also investigated in various model dyes like methyl orange (MO), methyl red (MR), rhodamine B (RhB) including NO in presence of catalysts and oxidation of NO spectra was recorded at constant time interval. CZ nanoparticles were characterized by a host of different techniques such as X-ray diffraction, FTIR, SEM and UV-Visible spectroscopy. The phase structure of Cu2xZr1-xO2 was cubic and crystallite sizes was found to be 17 +/- 1 nm, which was also compatibility from grain sizes of nanoparticles 20 +/- 1 nm (SEM analysis). The band gap of Cu2xZr1-xO2 is 5.03 eV calculated from the optical measurement.