Synthesis of Cu-CuO nanocomposite in microreactor and its application to photocatalytic degradation

The nanocomposite of Cu-CuO is successfully prepared via controlled oxidation of Cu nanoparticles synthesized by liquid-phase reduction in a microreactor. The particle's morphology, size, and elemental compositions have been investigated. Experimental results demonstrate that copper nanoparticles are spherical in shape, with good dispersion and narrow particle size distribution. The surface of Cu nanoparticles was oxidized to CuO, and the size of Cu-CuO composites crystallites was around 10 nm, consistent with the size of copper nanoparticles. The prepared Cu-CuO nanocomposite along with the presence of H2O2 exhibits excellent photocatalytic activity for degradation of methylene blue (MB) under UV irradiation. An overall degradation of 98.5% could be achieved with 10 mg of Cu-CuO nanocomposite along with 1 mL of H2O2, within duration of 50 min irradiation. The MB degradation kinetics was observed to follow first order.