Essential roles of defects in pure graphene/Cu2O photocatalyst

• A composite composed of CVD-grown graphene and Cu2O was prepared for photo-catalyst.
• Catalytic activity was dependent on the abundance of defects in graphene flakes.
• The roles of defects in enhancing the catalytic performance were demonstrated.

The pure graphene flakes with different abundance of defects were synthesized by CVD method to successfully prepare the graphene/Cu2O composites for the photocatalytic degradation of methyl orange (MO) under visible light irradiation. The results illustrate that catalytic activity was strongly dependent on the abundance of defects in graphene flakes. The highest activity was measured to be 80.10% in 30 min light irradiation. Furthermore, we demonstrate that the defects in graphene could facilitate to construct an efficient interface between graphene and Cu2O for narrowing the band gap of original Cu2O semiconductor and inhibiting the recombination of photo-generated electron–hole pairs.

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