Visible Light Driven Heterojunction Photocatalyst of CuO–Cu2O Thin Films for Photocatalytic Degradation of Organic Pollutants

Abstract

A high recombination rate and low charge collection are the main limiting factors of copper oxides (cupric and cuprous oxide) for the photocatalytic degradation of organic pollutants. In this paper, a high performance copper oxide photocatalyst was developed by integrating cupric oxide (CuO) and cuprous oxide (Cu2O) thin films, which showed superior performance for the photocatalytic degradation of methylene blue (MB) compared to the control CuO and Cu2O photocatalyst. Our results show that a heterojunction photocatalyst of CuO–Cu2O thin films could significantly increase the charge collection, reduce the recombination rate, and improve the photocatalytic activity.