Page 21 - IPCoSME 2021

1 INTERNATIONAL POSTGRADUATE CONFERENCE ON SCIENCE AND MARINE ENVIRONMENT 2021
st
(IPCoSME 2021)
“Environmental Sustainability Enhancement Through the Collaboration of Sciences”

RA-08

EFFECT OF DIFFERENT RATIO OF CUO/TIO2 PHOTOCATALYST ON THEIR
PHYSICOCHEMICAL AND PHOTOCATALYTIC ACTIVITY FOR MO

DEGRADATION

ALINA IRWANA MUHAMAD A’SRAI , MOHD HASMIZAM RAZALI ,
1
1 2

1 Faculty of Science & Marine Environment, Universiti Malaysia Terengganu, 21030 Kuala
Nerus, Terengganu, Malaysia

2 Advanced Nanomaterials Research Group, Faculty of Science & Marine Environment,
Universiti Malaysia Terengganu, 21030 Kuala Nerus, Terengganu, Malaysia

*Corresponding author email: mdhasmizam@umt.edu.my

Abstract: Titanium dioxide (TiO2) was utilized in photocatalysis applications due to their non-
toxic, cheap and high photocatalytic activity. However, its photocatalytic reaction is limited by
low surface area as well as the rapid recombination of photogenerated electron-hole pairs and

only has the ability to absorb a small fraction (<5%) of indoor light. In this study, copper oxide
coupled with titanium dioxide (CuO/TiO2) nanocomposite photocatalyst and pure TiO2 was
synthesized using a hydrothermal method. The synthesised photocatalyst was characterized by
using Fourier-transform infrared spectroscopy (FTIR), X-ray diffraction analysis (XRD),
Scanning electron microscopy (SEM), Thermogravimetric analysis (TGA), Brunauer, Emmett,
teller (BET) and UV-Visible Spectroscopy. Spectra obtained from FTIR have proved that there
is the existence of O-H stretching, O-H vibration and metal-O bond that correlates to the

functional groups of the samples. As affirmed by XRD analysis, a highly crystalline anatase
TiO2 phase was obtained for pure TiO2 samples. Anatase TiO2 phase remained and additional
peaks belonging to copper oxide were observed for CuO/TiO2 nanocomposite photocatalyst
samples. This finding suggests that copper oxide was successfully loaded onto TiO2.
Morphological study from SEM shows the presence of short rod-like particles of copper oxide
and agglomerated TiO2 bulk particles. TGA results show that pure TiO2 and CuO were

thermally stable with only 6.5 and 6.8% weight loss, respectively due to the water removal.
2
BET surface area for CuO, TiO2 and CuO/TiO2 nanocomposite photocatalysts were 20.50 m /g,
2
2
15.26 m /g and 17.13 m /g, respectively. The photocatalytic degradation of methyl orange
(MO) was found to be 60.00% using CuO/TiO2 nanocomposite photocatalyst with ratio 1:5,
which is better than pure TiO2, pure CuO and other CuO/TiO2 nanocomposites after 3 hours
reaction. This is attributed to the presence of CuO at optimum amount which can enhance the
surface area, promotes electron-hole separation and decelerates the charge carrier

recombination.

Keywords: copper oxide, titanium dioxide, photocatalyst, nanocomposite, degradation

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