Studies On Synthesis And Photocatalytic Performance Of Cupric Oxide With Different Morphologies

As an important inorganic raw material, cupric oxide has gained wide application in many different fields due to its unique properties. It is anticipated to diversify the use of cupric oxide products with more specific attributes by manipulating the morphology of produced particles. Herein, in the current contribution, complexing-precipitate method was employed to synthesize cupric oxide particles in pursuit of a better understanding of the morphology under different conditions of copper source (sulfate, chloride, acetate, and nitrate), temperature, concentration of copper ion, and additives (PEG and PVP). At different combination of conditions, a series of nano-CuO products with sphere-, cotton candy-, prism-, cylinder-, dumbbell-and rod-like morphologies of particles were obtained as characterized by SEM, XRD as well as FT-IR. It was found that these conditions have also apparent effects on the dispersity of resultant particles, among which the presence of surfactants played a crucial role in guiding the direction of crystal nucleus and controlling the growth of crystalline.Furthermore, the photocatalytic activity of obtained CuO products was investigated through photodegradation of methyl orange under ultraviolet light. It was shown that operation parameters like the initial pH of solution, dosage of CuO, and addition of H2O2had a great influence on the photocatalytic activity of nano-CuO concerned. Optimized conditions could be established with the following parameters:pH<3, catalyst=60mg/L, and H2O2=1:70(V/V). When compared with rod-like nano-CuO product, those of sphere-, cotton candy-, prism-, cylinder-, and dumbbell-like morphologies exhibited higher photocatalytic activity with the degradation rate of methyl orange over90%in5h.