Hydrothermal Synthesis of Copper Hydroxyphosphate Hierarchical Superstructures and Its Photocatalysis Activity in UV Light

Copper hydroxyphosphate (Cu2(OH)PO4) with uniform 3D flower-shaped microsphere hierarchical superstructure was successfully synthesized through a template-free hydrothermal route with ammonia as alkali and complexing agent. This approach provides a facile strategy to synthesize copper hydroxyphosphate crystals with unique morphologies and complex architectures. Several characterization tools including X-ray powder diffraction (XRD), UV–Vis diffuse reflectance spectra (UV– Vis DRS), scanning electron microscope (SEM), and FT-IR were employed to study the phase structures, optical properties, morphologies and characteristic functional groups of the resulting hierarchical superstructures. We further demonstrated the useful photocatalytic activity of Cu2(OH)PO4 in the degradation of methylene blue (MB) dye under UV light irradiation. From the analysis of potentials of Cu2(OH)PO4, it’s theoretically deduced that the photocatalytic degradation of MB could be attributed to the •OH and hole rather than •O2 radicals. Keywordscopper hydroxyphate; hierarchical superstructures; hydrothermal Synthesis; photocatalysi; mechanism s.