Atomic layer deposition of Cu2O on NH2-MIL-101(Fe) for enhanced photocatalytic performance and decreased electron/hole recombination

Coupling appropriate semiconductor nanoparticles with massive surface-area support has become a promising but challenging strategy to photocatalyst design for enhanced photocatalytic activity in environmental cleaning applications, owing to the severe aggregation issues of nanoparticles. Herein, the atomic layer deposition (ALD) approach was applied to uniformly disperse ultrafine Cu2O nanoparticles (5-10 nm) on metal-organic frameworks without aggregation, forming NH2-MIL-101(Fe)/Cu2O nanocomposite photocatalysts. The Cu2O mass within the nanocomposites can be well controlled by merely adjusting the ALD cycles. The optimal NH2-MIL-101 (Fe)/Cu2O displays a high photodegradation efficiency of 92% for RhB and excellent stability under visible light. The reaction kinetics and photocurrent response experimental results reveal that the optimal NH2-MIL-101(Fe)/Cu2O photocatalyst exhibits effective charge separation/transfer and suppressed recombination rate of charge carriers, which will significantly increase the solar light utilization efficiency and photocatalytic activity. We believe the presented photocatalyst synthesis strategy here can be generalized to construct other photocatalysts for various photocatalytic applications.

Automated summary

This study successfully dispersed ultrafine Cu2O nanoparticles on metal-organic frameworks using the ALD approach to form NH2-MIL-101(Fe)/Cu2O nanocomposite photocatalysts, addressing the aggregation issue of nanoparticles. The optimal NH2-MIL-101 (Fe)/Cu2O exhibited high photodegradation efficiency and excellent stability under visible light.