S. A. Hassanzadeh-Tabrizi, Reza Pournajaf, Amin Moradi-Faradonbeh
Sep 1, 2016
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Journal
Ceramics International
Abstract
Abstract In this work, nanostructured CuAl 2 O 4 particles were synthesized by a co-precipitation process with the aid of diethylamine as a precipitating agent. The photocatalytic activities of the synthesized powders were investigated for degradation of methyl orange used as a model wastewater contaminant. The characteristics of synthesized powders were studied using a variety of techniques including X-ray diffraction, thermogravimetric and differential thermal analysis, transmission electron microscope, Fourier transform infrared spectroscopy and ultraviolet-visible spectroscopy. The TEM results showed that CuAl 2 O 4 nanopowders are mainly composed of irregular particles with a mean diameter of about 20 nm. The band gap energies of samples decreased from 3.5 eV to 1.8 eV as the calcination temperature increased from 100 °C to 700 °C. It was found that the sample calcined at 700 °C provided maximum methyl orange degradation efficiency (~98%).