Fabrication of CuO/UiO-66-NO2/TFC-PA catalytic film for the removal of organic contaminant

CuO/UiO-66-NO2/TFC-PA catalytic film was successfully fabricated by embedding CuO/UiO-66-NO2 catalyst nanoparticles onto the PA layer of TFC-PA film through the interfacial polymerization technique. The as-prepared catalytic films were characterized by various techniques such as XRD, FTIR, ATR-IR, EDX, UV-Vis DRS, and N2 adsorption-desorption isotherm. The photocatalytic activity was evaluated by the decomposition of Methylene blue (MB) dye in the aqueous phase under visible light irradiation. The results indicated that the highest removal efficiency achieved was 98.5%, which was consistent with the pseudo-first-order kinetics. Additionally, the proposed mechanism for the charge transfer process was based on the results of radical scavenging experiments, which showed that superoxide and hydroxyl radicals were the predominant reactive species. Finally, the catalyst was stable and could be reused at least four times without loss of photocatalytic activity.