Fabrication of Cu-MOF-Derived Cu/CuxO/C Bifunctional Materials for Light and Dark Catalytic Properties

Metal–organic frameworks (MOFs) are self-assembled constitutive precursors and efficient self-sacrificial templates with metal ions/clusters and organic linkers from which multifunctional materials with carbon nanostructures can be derived. In this study, we synthesized a novel Cu-MOF with Cu(II) as the central metal ion through two ligands, N,N′-bis(pyridin-3-yl)terephthalamide (3-bpta) and fumaric acid (H2FA), which was used as a template for derivatizing carbon-based nanostructured materials of Cu and CuxO through doping with different materials (melamine, urea, and TiO2) in a simple and efficient one-step pyrolysis. The Cu/CuxO-1 catalyst possesses both dark-catalyzed degradation activity and photocatalytic reduction activity during water purification due to the hole-transfer ability between Cu+ and Cu2+ and its inhibition of electron–hole complexation. In the absence of light, force, and cocatalyst, it can also effectively remove azo dyes in water and effectively reduce Cr(VI) under the action of visible light; therefore, Cu/CuxO-1 can be used as a new type of bifunctional material for the removal of pollutants in water, which has a broad prospect.