Magnetically separable rGO based ternary composite for enhanced photocatalytic activity

Abstract

Recently, there has been a lot of attention paid to synthesizing magnetically separable nanocomposites to in-crease photocatalyst efficiency and charge-transfer ability. Herein, copper oxide-Cadmium ferrite binary com-posite (CuO/CdFe) and its ternary composite with reduced graphene (CuO/CdFe@rGO) were also fabricated by ultra-sonication method. Moreover, Structural and morphological confirmation of prepared samples was studied by X-ray diffraction (XRD), Fourier transform-infrared spectroscopy (FTIR), Scanning electron microscopy (SEM) and UV-visible spectroscopy. Furthermore, these prepared photocatalysts were treated against crystal violet (CV), phenol and benzoic acid. Interestingly, results showed maximum degradation by CuO/CdFe@rGO ternary composite. Presence of rGO sheets provided maximum surface area, high charge separation capabilities, more active sites and high stability. It also reduced electron-hole pair recombination rate by trapping charged species readily. Hence, CuO/CdFe@rGO acts as effective photocatalyst and degraded 92%, of Crystal violet (CV), 54% of phenol and 63% of benzoic acid in 90 min. Scavenging experiment was also performed to investigate the reactive species involved in degradation process. Remarkably, CuO/CdFe@rGO nanocomposite could be magnetically recovered. In addition, CuO/CdFe@rGO ternary composite exhibited good reusability and photostability even after four cyclic runs without any lose in its photocatalytic efficiency.