Unraveling the effect of Cu doping on the structural and morphological properties and photocatalytic activity of ZrO2

Ibrahim M Sharaf; J Laifi; Shoroog Alraddadi; M Saad; M S I Koubesy; Nancy N Elewa; Hussain Almohiy; Yasser M Ismail; Alexander Soldatov; Abdelaziz M Aboraia

doi:10.1016/j.heliyon.2023.e23848

Unraveling the effect of Cu doping on the structural and morphological properties and photocatalytic activity of ZrO₂

Heliyon. 2023 Dec 18;10(1):e23848. doi: 10.1016/j.heliyon.2023.e23848. eCollection 2024 Jan 15.

Authors

Affiliations

¹ Physics Department, Faculty of Science, Al-Azhar University, Assiut Branch 71524, Egypt.
² Physics Department, College of Science, Jouf University, P.O. Box 2014, Sakaka, Kingdom of Saudi Arabia.
³ Department of Physics, University College in AlJumum, Umm Al-Qura University, PO Box 715, Makkah 21955, Saudi Arabia.
⁴ Department of Radiological Sciences, College of Applied Medical Science, King Khalid University, Abha, Kingdom of Saudi Arabia.
⁵ Physics Department, Faculty of Science, Ain Shams University, Cairo, Egypt.
⁶ Department of Physics, Faculty of Science, Islamic University of Madinah, Kingdom of Saudi Arabia.
⁷ The Smart Materials Researcher Institute, Southern Federal University, Rostov on-Don, Russia.

Abstract

Pristine ZrO₂ and doped with different concentrations of Copper (0-7 %) were synthesized using a sol-gel combustion route. Several advanced techniques like XRD, EDX, TEM, XPS, P.L., and UV-vis spectrophotometer have characterized the compositions. The XRD proved that all peaks matched with a tetragonal phase of ZrO₂ without any impurities of other phases. An average crystallite size rises from 20 to 55 nm by increasing the concentrations of Copper. The elemental analysis was examined by EDX and confirmed the presence of Cooper, Zirconium, and Oxygen. The red shift was observed due to a decrease in the bandgap (5.5-4.01 eV) with increasing the Cu concentrations. From the analysis of photocatalysis of pure ZrO₂ and different concentrations of Cu-doped ZrO₂ for M.B., RHB, and mix of them. The increase in doping of Cu led to enhancing the performance of the removing MB from 35 to 80 %, however, the RHB degradation was from 42 to 81 % while the mix of M.B. and RHB reached 85 % with 7 % Cu-doping ZrO₂.

Keywords: Doping; M.B.; Nanoparticles; Photocatalysis; RHB; Water purification.