Ultrafast degradation of Congo Red dye using a facile one-pot solvothermal synthesis of cuprous oxide/titanium dioxide and cuprous oxide/zinc oxide p-n heterojunction photocatalyst

Abstract The photodegradation of Congo red (CR) dye was studied with pure Cu2O, Cu2O/TiO2 (CT), and Cu2O/ZnO (CZ) heterojunctions photocatalysts. A facile one-pot solvothermal method with absolute ethanol as a solvent and reducing agent was used to prepare the photocatalysts. CT and CZ showed excellent adsorption properties and ultrafast photocatalytic activities on CR, especially CZ. The optimized CZ (1.5–1.5) resulted in an incredible photocatalytic activity by completely degrading 30 ppm CR within 10 min. The configuration of p-n heterojunction between Cu2O, TiO2, and ZnO successfully promoted the photogenerated electron-hole pairs separation for enhanced CR dye degradation in aqueous solution.