DOI: https://doi.org/10.55373/mjchem.v28i1.481

Keywords: Polyol method, rise-like, photodegradation, CuO, heterojunction

Abstract

High-purity TiO₂ and CuO/TiO₂ nanocomposite systems were prepared via a simple polyol solvothermal method. The synthetic precursors for nanomaterials were titanium isopropoxide (TTIP) and copper nitrate trihydrate. Several characteristic techniques, including X-ray diffraction (XRD), field-emission scanning electron microscopy (FESEM), energy-dispersive X-ray spectroscopy (EDX), Fourier transform infrared (FTIR) spectroscopy, Brunauer-Emmett-Teller (BET) testing, and photoluminescence (PL) spectroscopy, were employed to investigate the as-synthesised nanomaterials. The findings showed that the undoped TiO2 and CuO/TiO₂ composite samples exhibited a rice-like structure after heat treatment for 3 hours at 450 °C in an oven. The optimized MB degradation reached approximately 99.87% at 160 min, compared to bare TiO₂ nanoparticles, which achieved approximately 93.81% after 180 min of UV irradiation.