فهرست نشریات علمی دسترسی آزاد ایران

A nanocomposite of TiO2 and Ni2CuO3 nanoparticles was synthesized using two different synthetic methods, namely coprecipitation and sol-gel reactions. It was confirmed that incorporating 4 wt% of Ni2CuO3 nanoparticles enhanced the visible-light sensitivity and narrowed the optical band gap to 2.65 eV. Also, photoluminescence (PL) spectroscopy revealed the improved charge separation in the nanocomposite compared to the pure TiO2 sample. The photocatalytic activity of the synthesized nanocomposites was assessed for degradation of methyl orange (MO) under visible light irradiation. By illuminating during 150 min, the degradation level of MO approached 94.17% using TiO2/4 wt%-Ni2CuO3 nanocomposite. In comparison, the nanocomposites containing 2 wt% and 6 wt% of Ni2CuO3 nanoparticles were able to degrade the MO solution by 51.14% and 82.37%, respectively. Optimization experiments demonstrated that the highest degradation efficiency was obtained using 0.05 g of the nanocomposite at a pH of around 5. Moreover, reusability tests exhibited that the TiO2/4 wt%-Ni2CuO3 nanocomposite retained the excellent photocatalytic activity over six successive reaction cycles without significant loss of efficiency.