One-pot synthesis of CuO nanoflower-decorated reduced graphene oxide and its application to photocatalytic degradation of dyes

In this paper, we demonstrate our recent finding that CuO nanoflower-decorated reduced graphene oxide (CuONF/rGO) nanocomposites can be successfully prepared by heating the mixture of Cu salts and GO in the presence of poly[(2-ethyldimethylammonioethyl methacrylate ethyl sulfate)-co-(1-vinylpyrrolidone)] (PQ11) and urea for the first time. Several analytical techniques, including UV-vis spectroscopy, Raman spectroscopy, X-ray diffraction (XRD), transmission electron microscopy (TEM), and X-ray photoelectron spectroscopy (XPS) have been used to characterize the resulting CuONF/rGO nanocomposites. We further demonstrated that such CuONF/rGO nanocomposites can serve as an effective photocatalyst for degradation of rhodamine B (RhB) under UV irradiation. It also suggests that these CuONF/rGO nanocomposites exhibit a higher photocatalytic activity toward degradation of RhB than CuO nanoparticles or rGO samples.