Enhanced photocatalytic degradation of pure and Cu-doped ZnO nanoparticles prepared under Co-precipitation method

The key goal of this study is to innovate the pure and 0.05, 0.10 and 0.15 wt.% of Cudoped ZnO NPs through co-precipitation technique. PXRD pattern shows the hexagonal crystal structure with no any phase impurity were observed for all the synthesized samples. From UV-Vis DRS spectra, band gap was obtained as 3.18, 3.24, 3.29 and 3.33 eV respectively for undoped, Cu-doped ZnO NPs (0.05, 0.10 and 0.15 wt.%). From SEM analysis, the agglomeration of rod-like morphology for pure ZnO NPs, spherical-like morphology for Cu-doped ZnO NPs (0.05 wt.%) and flake-like morphology for Cu-doped ZnO NPs (0.10 wt.%) and flower-like morphology for Cu-doped ZnO NPs (0.15 wt.%). The photocatalytic performance of the synthesized NPs was studied by the dye degradation of Methylene Blue (MB) under UV irradiation. The result exposed that, 0.15 wt.% of Cu-doped ZnO NPs is found to have efficient degradation candidate materials.