The Effect of the Reducing Sugars in the Synthesis of Visible-Light-Active Copper(I) Oxide Photocatalyst
Open Access
- 21 February 2021
- Vol. 26 (4), 1149
- https://doi.org/10.3390/molecules26041149
Abstract
In the present work, shape tailored Cu2O microparticles were synthesized by changing the nature of the reducing agent and studied subsequently. d-(+)-glucose, d-(+)-fructose, d-(+)xylose, d-(+)-galactose, and d-(+)-arabinose were chosen as reducing agents due to their different reducing abilities. The morpho-structural characteristics were studied by X-ray diffraction (XRD), scanning electron microscopy (SEM), and diffuse reflectance spectroscopy (DRS), while their photocatalytic activity was evaluated by methyl orange degradation under visible light (120 min). The results show that the number of carbon atoms in the sugars affect the morphology and particle size (from 250 nm to 1.2 µm), and differences in their degree of crystallinity and photocatalytic activity were also found. The highest activity was observed when glucose was used as the reducing agent.Keywords
Funding Information
- Hungarian Science Foundation (GINOP-2.3.2-15-2016-00013)
- Hungarian Scientific Research Fund (NKFI-K-124212, NTP-NFTÖ-20-B-0328)
- Hungarian Academy of Sciences (Bolyai János fellowship)
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