Fabrication and photocatalysis of CuO/ZnO nano-composites via a new method

CuO/ZnO nano-composites were successfully prepared via coordination oxidation homogeneous co-precipitation method. Thermogravimetric and differential thermal analysis (TG–DTA), FT-IR, field-emission scanning electron microscope (FESEM), energy dispersive X-ray spectrometry (EDS), transmission electron microscope (TEM), powder X-ray diffraction (XRD) were used to characterize the microstructure and morphology of the precursor and the products obtained at various temperatures. The research on the growth dynamics of product showed that the dynamic growth index was 5, the growth speed constant K was 4.93 × 104 nm5/min and the apparent activation energy presented differently in the low-temperature region and high-temperature region with the values of 14.94 kJ/mol and 59.84 kJ/mol, respectively. The results of the photocatalytic degradation of methyl orange (MO) in aqueous solution indicated that, with the calcining temperature increasing, the photocatalytic performance of the product increased first, and then began to decrease when the calcining temperature got to 450 °C because the particle size increased.