Photocatalytic Study of Reduced Graphene Oxide Integrated on Cu modified Zinc Oxide Nanocomposites for Saffranin O Dye Decolorization

The world's ecology is being impacted by the exponential rise in water pollution that has been caused by numerous industrial effluents due to the recent rapid growth in human population and technological advancement. These days, photocatalysts based on heterogeneous semiconductors are an affordable option for degrading organic contaminants by photocatalysis. Now, under visible light irradiation, metal oxide-based reduced graphene oxide (rGO) nanocomposites (NCs) were studied for photocatalytic degradation of Safranin O (SO) dye. ZnO, Cu-ZnO, ZnO/rGO, and Cu-ZnO/rGO are examples of metal oxide and rGO embedded metal oxide NCs materials that were prepared hydrothermally. The physicochemical characterization of these materials was investigated using Powder X-ray diffraction (PXRD), Scanning Electron Microscopy (SEM), and Ultraviolet Diffuse Reflectance Spectroscopy (UV-DRS). With increasing irradiation time, the catalyst's photocatalytic efficiency increased in both acidic and basic pH. 99.1% efficiency at 120 minutes is the maximum value for Cu-ZnO/rGO, outperforming the efficiency of other catalysts. At all concentrations, Cu-ZnO/rGO exhibits a greater photocatalytic efficiency than other catalysts.