Construction of the Ternary Cu2O/UiO-66-NH2@GO Heterostructure Photocatalyst for Efficient Degradation of Organic Pollutants

Abstract

Photocatalytic degradation of pollutants under visible light is a propitious approach to address the issue of environmental pollution. The photocatalytic degradation by heterogeneous Cu₂O-based photocatalysts has been widely concerned. Herein, a ternary Cu₂O/UiO-66-NH₂@GO nanocomposite was successfully prepared by a two-step hydrothermal technique for the photodegradation of organic pollutants in water. The successful fabrication of a ternary heterostructure composed of Cu₂O, UiO-66-NH₂, and GO was confirmed by SEM, TEM, XRD, XPS, Raman, and FTIR characterization. The ternary heterostructure photocatalyst effectively improved the photoresponse and porous characteristics of Cu₂O. Under visible light, 98.6% of 4-nitrophenol (4-NP) and 99.2% of rhodamine B (RhB) were degraded by Cu₂O/UiO-66-NH₂@GO photocatalyst with 3 and 15 min, respectively. The K_app values of 4-NP and RhB photocatalytic degradation were calculated as 1.450 and 0.428 min⁻¹, respectively. The stability tests showed that the photocatalyst was reasonably excellent after four cycles. The enhanced efficiency benefited from the strengthened visible light harvesting, reduced recombination of photogenerated electron–hole pairs, and enhanced migration efficiency of charge carriers. The effects of scavengers confirmed that hole trapping species played a crucial role during the photodegradation process. The proposed study provides inspiration for designing a simple multiheterostructure visible light–driven photocatalyst with promising environmental remediation applications.