CuO‐ZnO Nanosheets with p–n Heterojunction for Enhanced Visible Light Mediated Photocatalytic Activity

Abstract Herein, CuO‐ZnO (CZ) nanosheets with p‐n heterojunction have been fabricated using very facile two‐step method including pre‐calcination and calcination step. The as‐prepared nanosheets were characterized using Field Emission Scanning Electron Microscopy (FE‐SEM), Transmission Electron Microscopy (TEM) and X‐Ray Diffraction (XRD) for their morphological and structural analysis, respectively. The optical properties of the samples were further investigated using UV‐Visible spectroscopy. The photocatalytic activity of these nanosheets towards the degradation of congo red, methylene blue and benzoic acid under solar irradiations was investigated. The results showed the much higher activity of CZ nanosheets with p‐n heterojunction than that of pure CuO or ZnO nanosheets. It was observed that the photocatalysis followed the pseudo first order kinetics from which rate of reaction was calculated. This enhanced performance was attributed to the retardation in the recombination of photogenerated charge carriers which was further confirmed by photoluminescence (PL) studies. These results unveiled the great potential of such nanostructures so that they can be efficiently and repeatedly used in the future water remediation applications.