Photocatalytic Study of CuO-V2O5-ZnO Ternary Nanoparticles

Introduction: Environmental pollution is a complex and pressing global issue that directly impacts our quality of life and poses significant risks to the well-being of future generations. The rapid development of industry and urban areas, coupled with large-scale natural resource exploitation, has elevated environmental pollution to unprecedented levels. Industrial wastewater contains a range of organic and inorganic pollutants, particularly the large volumes of colored wastewater from the textile industry, which severely contaminate water resources. As a result, wastewater treatment technologies have become a critical focus in today's society. Advanced oxidation processes (AOP) is a practical technology that enhances the biodegradability and detoxification capacity of wastewater in treatment plants, with photocatalysis being a key branch of AOP. Objective: The primary objective of this investigation is to enhance the degradation efficiency of CuO/V2O5/ZnO under UV light. Method: In this study, copper oxide (CuO), vanadium pentoxide (V2O5), and zinc oxide (ZnO) were selected as the photocatalytic materials. A low-cost thermal synthesis method was employed to easily synthesize a binary V2O5/ZnO nano photocatalyst and four different molar ratios of ternary (5 mol%:32 mol%:63 mol%)/(5 mol%:45 mol%:50 mol%)/(5 mol%:50 mol%:45 mol%)/ (5 mol%:63 mol%:32 mol%) CuO/V2O5/ZnO nano photocatalysts: The instrument part uses ultraviolet-visible (UV-Vis), X-ray diffractometer (XRD), multifunctional environmental field-emission scanning electron microscope (EFE-SEM), energy scattering spectrometer (EDS) to analyze and identify the crystal structure, morphology, and optical properties of the photocatalyst, and study the photodegradation efficiency of methylene blue and the initial dye concentration of the sample under the irradiation of ultraviolet lamps. Results: The photocatalyst has good photodegradation efficiency for methylene blue. At a photocatalyst concentration of 1g/L, 91% of the methylene blue dye with a concentration of 20PPM was degraded within 150 minutes. Conclusion: Five different molar percentages of CuO/V2O5/ZnO nanophotocatalysts were analyzed using XRD, revealing that variations in molar percentages resulted in corresponding changes in the observed peaks. SEM analysis of five CuO/V2O5/ZnO nanophotocatalysts with varying molar percentages revealed that the surface morphology of the samples changes with the zinc-to-vanadium ratio. An increase in zinc content produces flower-like nanostructures formed by agglomerated nanosheets and nanoparticles, while an increase in vanadium results in rough block structures composed of nanospheres and capsule-like formations. In evaluating photocatalytic efficiency, 5 ppm MB was photodegraded using five different molar percentages of CuO/V2O5/ZnO nano photocatalysts. Among them, the 5% CuO/63% V2O5/32% ZnO composition achieved the highest photodegradation efficiency, degrading 84% of MB in 150 minutes.