Preparation Of Cuprous Oxide/Rectorite Nano-composite And Research Of Photocatalysis Properties

How to use solar energy effectively in pollution control has attracted worldwide attention under the circumstances of the increasingly serious global environmental pollution and energy crisis at present. In recent years, the preparation and application of photocatalyst with high activity which have high quantum efficiency and can make full use of solar has become a hot research topic that has attracted a wide spread attention in the photocatalysis field. As one of the advanced oxidation technologies , semiconductor photocatalytic oxidation technology can oxidize organic compounds organic pollutants completely into H₂O, CO₂ and other small molecules with strong oxidant. And compared with the other traditional water treatment technologies,it has advantages of being degradation completely, efficient, inexpensive, stable,applied widely and expected to use sunlight. Thus more and more attention has been paid on the semiconductor photocatalytic oxidation technology.Although the nanometer titanium dioxide as a semiconductor photocataly -sis oxidant has been gained comprehensive attentions by far, low utilization of solar energy obstructs its progress. Nano-cuprous oxide (Cu₂O) is a kind of p-type semiconductor material with narrow band gap (Eg =2.0².2eV). Nano-cuprous oxide can absorb visible light directly,thus it has a strong absorption efficiency of sunlight. As one of the semiconductor photocatalysts which possesses great application potential,nano-cuprous oxide has gradually become the focus of attention.However, although the nano-sized photocatalyst has strong photoca -talytic activity,nanoparticles in the suspension system have the short -comings of being easy to agglomerate and difficult to recycle in practice. Therefore, the immobilization of photocatalyst is very important for the application of photocatalytic technology. Suitable carrier material can increase the effective specific surface area of reaction, provide a proper pore structure,improve the mechanical strength of the catalyst,thermal stability,resistance to poisoning and reduce the production cost.In this experimental study, nano-cuprous oxide was prepared by hydroly -sis and cuprous oxide/rectorite nano-composite which took rectorite as the carrier was successfully synthesized. The composite material overcomes the drawbacks of nano-cuprous oxide in the application of photocatalytic oxidation. The structure of the nano-cuprous oxide and cuprous oxide/ rectorite nano-composite were characterized and analyzed by means of X-ray diffraction (XRD), scanning electron microscopy (SEM) and ultraviolet- visible diffuse reflectance (UV-Vis DRS). The photocatalytic oxidation performance of the cuprous oxide/rectorite nano-composite was evaluated through decolorization of simulated dye wastewater such as xylenol orange and methylene blue and degradation of cigarette wastewater.The results show that cuprous oxide/rectorite nano-composite can not only solve the problem of being easy to agglomeration and difficult to recycle in the traditional suspension system,but also combine the advantages of rectorite and Cu₂O so that synergies may arise. Thus the photocatalytic activity will be improved.Meanwhile,the disadvantage that the photocatalytic oxidation material need to be activated by ultraviolet in the wastewater treatment process UV-activated can be overcome. The preparation of the composite provides a scientific basis for the possibility to achieve industriali -zetion in nano-semiconductor optical catalytic oxidation technology ,indicating a good application prospect.The innovation of this study :(1) The cuprous oxide/rectorite nano-composite was prepared for the first time and its visible-light catalytic performance was systematically studied.(2) The theory of constructing immobilized fenton system with semicon -ductor photocatalyst and clay minerals was first proposed in this paper. The traditional bottlenecks in semiconductor photocatalyst has been broken throu -gh that the particle size of nano-cuprous oxide has been effectively controlled with the result that the electron-hole recombination rate has been reduced and the photocatalytic degradation efficiency has been improved in this study. The research has overcome disadvantages of wastewater treatment that cuprous oxide is difficult to be recycled in the suspension phase and provides the basis for the possibility of industrialization in nano-semiconduc -tor photocatalysis.