The study on preparation and photocatalytic activities of Cu2O/TiO2 nanoparticles

Compare with TiO2, Cu2O has higher conduction and valence bands. Combined with TiO2 they may form p–n heterojunction structure so as to improve the photocatalytic efficiency. In this paper Cu2O-loaded TiO2 nanoparticles (Cu2O/TiO2) were prepared by ultrasonication-assisted penetrate precipitation method. The catalysts were characterized by TEM, SEM, XRD, XPS, PL etc., The photocatalytic degradation kinetics of Cu2O-loaded TiO2 nanoparticles on methylene blue were systematically investigated. Experiment show that high loading Cu2O in Cu2O/TiO2 material by penetrate precipitation process result in the appearance of large Cu2O nanoparticles size in the TiO2 surface, and consequently decreased the photocatalysis performance. The Cu2O particle size effects on the absorption band edge and photo induced catalytic performance were also investigated.