Synthesis of a Highly Efficient Multifunctional Copper (II)‐Pyridyl Complex for Adsorption and Photocatalytic Degradation of Organic Dyes

A new copper (II) pyridyl complex CP1 , has been synthesized for adsorption as well as photocatalytic degradation of Methylene Blue (MB) and Rhodamine B (RhB) dyes and characterized through FT‐IR, LC–MS, FE‐SEM, TEM and EPR studies. The density functional theoretical (DFT) study was performed to determine the mode of binding of Cu II ions with ligand 1 to form complex CP1 . Photoluminescence study in solid state suggests that CP1 could act as potential green light emitter. The adsorption of MB and RhB dyes on the surface of CP1 is found to depend on adsorbent dosage, initial concentration of dyes and contact time. In addition, adsorption of dyes on CP1 is found to follow Freundlich adsorption isotherm and pseudo‐second order kinetics. The photocatalytic degradation was performed under visible light irradiation which reveals that 95.8% of MB (16 mgL −1 ) and 93.7% of RhB (23.95 mgL −1 ) can be decolorized in 35 minutes using 0.3 gL −1 of catalyst. To determine the intermediates formed during photocatalytic degradation of dyes, LC–MS spectra is also obtained. From the LC–MS spectra, intermediates are identified and mechanism of degradation of dyes has been proposed.