Radish (Raphanus sativus) Leaves Mediated CuO-NiO Nanocomposite for Photocatalytic Activity

Abstract

Fundamental and applied research depends on the removal of organic toxic effluents from textile industries. Photocatalytic dye degradation of CuO-NiO nanocomposite has been studied against methylene blue (MB) dye. CuO-NiO nanocomposite has been prepared by hydrothermal method using radish (Raphanus sativus) leaves as green fuel. Prepared composite nanoparticles (NPs) are characterized by XRD, FTIR, UV-DRS and SEM with EDS for the elemental and structural information. XRD data indicated the formation of monoclinic and hexagonal crystallite structures for CuO and NiO respectively. FTIR confirmed the presence of Cu - O and Ni - O molecular vibrations. Surface morphology and elemental composition of composite was analysed by SEM with EDS. CuO-NiO nanocomposite is capable to degrade 70 % of methylene blue (MB) dye in 180 min under UV light interactions. Recyclability is also good even after 4 cycles of degradation experiment for the CuO-NiO composite.