Visible light driven exotic p (CuO) - n (TiO2) heterojunction for the photodegradation of 4-chlorophenol and antibacterial activity

The treatment of industrial waste and harmful bacteria is an important topic due to the release of toxins from the industrial pollutants that damage the water resources. These harmful sources frighten the life of every organism which was later developed as the carcinogenic and mutagenic agents. Therefore, the current study focuses on the breakdown or degradation of 4-chlorophenol and the antibacterial activity against Escherichia coli (E. coli). As a well-known catalyst, pure titanium-di-oxide (TiO2) had not shown the photocatalytic activity in the visible light region. Hence, band position of TiO2 need to be shifted to bring out the absorption in the visible light region. For this purpose, the n-type TiO2 nanocrystalline material's band gap got varied by adding different ratios of p-type CuO. The result had appeared in the formation of p (CuO) - n (TiO2) junction synthesized from sol-gel followed by chemical precipitation methods. The optical band gap value was determined by Kubelka-Munk (K-M) plot through UV-Vis diffusive reflectance spectroscopy (DRS). Further, the comprehensive mechanism and the results of photocatalytic and antibacterial activities were discussed in detail. These investigations are made for tuning the TiO2 catalyst towards improving or eliminating the existing various environmental damages.

Automated summary

This study focuses on improving the treatment of industrial waste and harmful bacteria by tuning the band gap of the TiO2 catalyst, and discusses the mechanism and results of photocatalytic and antibacterial activities in detail.