Facile synthesis of CuO nanowires and Cu2O nanospheres grown on rGO surface and exploiting its photocatalytic, antibacterial and supercapacitive properties

The control over the water pollution caused by the organic and biological pollutants is one of the challenging tasks for the scientific community. Here, we have focused to develop materials which can be used to remove both types of water pollutants and also assist in solving problems related to the energy crisis. The CuO, Cu2O, rGO-CuO and rGO-Cu2O of different shapes (sphere, rod and wire) and crystal phases were synthesized and their photocatalytic, antibacterial and supercapacitive properties were investigated. The photocatalytic activity of the synthesized products was measured against methylene blue (MB) dye under the direct sunlight while the antibacterial activity was tested against Klebsiella (gram-negative) and S. aureus (gram-positive) microbes. The electrochemical measurements revealed better supercapacitive performance of the rGO-CuO and rGO-Cu2O nanocomposites.