Synthesis of Mono and Bimetallic Metal-Organic Frameworks for Photocatalytic Degradation of Bisphenol A Under Natural Solar Irradiation

Herein, a facile synthesis of new photocatalysts of metal-organic frameworks (MOFs) using terephthalic acid as a linker and Ni and Ni/Cu as mono and bimetallic centers has been prepared. Further, the MOF photocatalysts were characterized by X-ray powder diffraction, scanning electron microscopy, and X-ray photoelectron spectroscopy and Molecular absorption spectroscopy techniques. Their photocatalytic activities toward Bis-phenol A photodegradation have been tested under natural solar irradiation. The bimetallic Cu/Ni-MOF photocatalyst demonstrated a superior photodegradation efficiency (77.4 %) after 120 min compared to 44.5 % for Ni-MOF. This is due to the impact of Cu introduction to the Ni-MOF matrix which reduced the band gap energy value, 2.87 eV and 2.22 eV for Ni-MOF and Cu/Ni-MOF, respectively. The obtained results revealed the potential of such photocatalysts to efficiently degrade wastewater pollutants under natural solar irradiation.