Hydrothermal synthesis of CuO/g-C3N4 nanosheets for visible-light driven photodegradation of methylene blue

In this article, we synthesized pure CuO, and a g-C3N4/CuO heterostructure using a hydrothermal technique. The synthesized samples were evaluated using different analytical techniques, demonstrating that the addition of g-C3N4 substantially altered the crystallinity, energy bandgap, particle size, and morphology. The interfacial contact between g-C3N4 and CuO, as well as the formation of heterostructure between them, was confirmed by XPS and TEM. We found that pure CuO, g-C3N4 and g-C3N4/CuO heterostructure has a bandgap of 1.40 eV, 2.70 eV and 1.30 eV respectively. The effectiveness of photodegradation of MB dye was observed to be 78%, 72% and 94% for pure CuO, g-C3N4 and g-C3N4/CuO after 100 min of visible light illumination. All samples exhibit pseudo-first-order kinetics for photodegradation of MB dye with good recyclability up to five cycles. The higher photodegradation efficiency of g-C3N4/CuO is may be attributed to its lower bandgap energy, enhanced charge transport, and reduced charge recombination than pure CuO and g-C3N4. Hence, designing g-C3N4/CuO heterostructure can be a potential approach towards wastewater treatment.

Automated summary

In this article, we synthesized pure CuO and a g-C3N4/CuO heterostructure and evaluated their properties using various analytical techniques. The addition of g-C3N4 substantially altered the properties of CuO and resulted in the formation of a heterostructure. Photodegradation experiments showed that the g-C3N4/CuO heterostructure exhibited higher efficiency, which could be attributed to its lower bandgap energy, enhanced charge transport, and reduced charge recombination. Therefore, designing g-C3N4/CuO heterostructure could be a potential approach for wastewater treatment.