Optimization of green biosynthesized visible light active CuO/ZnO nano-photocatalysts for the degradation of organic methylene blue dye

Amr Fouda; Salem S Salem; Ahmed R Wassel; Mohammed F Hamza; Th I Shaheen

doi:10.1016/j.heliyon.2020.e04896

Optimization of green biosynthesized visible light active CuO/ZnO nano-photocatalysts for the degradation of organic methylene blue dye

Heliyon. 2020 Sep 23;6(9):e04896. doi: 10.1016/j.heliyon.2020.e04896. eCollection 2020 Sep.

Authors

Amr Fouda¹, Salem S Salem¹, Ahmed R Wassel², Mohammed F Hamza^{3

4}, Th I Shaheen⁵

Affiliations

¹ Botany and Microbiology Department, Faculty of Science, AL-Azhar University, Nasr City, Cairo 11884, Egypt.
² Electron Microscope and Thin Films Department, Physics Research Division, National Research Centre, Dokki, Giza, 12622, Egypt.
³ Guangxi Key Laboratory of Processing for Non-ferrous Metals and Featured Materials, School of Resources, Environment and Materials, Guangxi University, Nanning 530004, China.
⁴ Nuclear Materials Authority, POB 530, El-Maadi, Cairo, Egypt.
⁵ National Research Centre (Scopus affiliation ID 60014618), Textile Research Division, (former El-Tahrir str.), Dokki, P.O. 1C2622, Giza, Egypt.

Abstract

Herein, CuO/ZnO nanocomposites at different ratios were successfully synthesized through a green biosynthesis approach. This was performed by harnessing the fungal-secreted enzymes and proteins during the sol-gel process for nanocomposites seed growth. All fabricated nanoparticles/nanocomposites were characterized using Fourier Transform Infra-Red (FT-IR) Spectroscopy, X-Ray Diffraction (XRD), Transmission Electron Microscopy (TEM), Scanning Electron Microscopy (SEM-EDX) and X-ray Photoelectron Spectroscopy (XPS) analyses. The photocatalytic degradation efficacy of the synthesized nanocomposites was evaluated using a cationic methylene blue (MB) dye as a model of reaction. Results obtained from the FT-IR and EDX analyses revealed that CuO-NPs, ZnO-NPs, CuO/ZnO_50/50, CuO/ZnO_80/20, and CuO/ZnO_20/80 were successfully prepared by harnessing the biomass filtrate of Penicillium corylophilum As-1. Furthermore, XRD and TEM revealed the variation in the particle size of the nanocomposites (10-55 nm) with the ratio of the nanoparticles. Notably, the size of the nanocomposites was proportionally increased with an increasing ratio of ZnO-NPs. XPS analysis affirmed the presence of both Cu and Zn in the nanocomposites with varying binding energies compared with individual nanoparticles. Furthermore, a high photo-degradation efficacy was achieved by increasing the ratio of ZnO-NPs in the nanocomposite formulation, and 97% of organic MB dye was removed after 85 min of irradiation using the CuO/ZnO_20/80 nanocomposite.

Keywords: Biosynthesis; CuO; Materials chemistry; Materials science; Nanocomposites; Nanotechnology; Penicillium corylophilum; Photocatalyst; ZnO.