Polyacrylamide synthesis of nanostructured copper aluminate for photocatalytic application

This paper reports the synthesis of nanostructured copper aluminate powders and their efficient application as a potential photocatalysts for photodegradation of organic dyes. The synthesized nanocomposites powders were characterized by XRD, TEM, DTA-TG analysis and UV-Vis spectroscopy. XRD results showed that pure and single phase copper aluminate was obtained after calcination at 700 °C. The obtained powders had a layered structure and each layer was composed of many nanoparticles which were inter connect to each other. The average particle size of samples calcined at 700 °C was about 26 nm. The photocatalytic activity of the prepared nanocatalysts was investigated via photodegradation of methyl orange under UV light. The band gap energy values of CuAl2O4 calcined at 700 and 900 °C are 1.79 and 1.72 eV, respectively. The results showed that the samples calcined at 700 °C showed the highest activity with 95 % photodegradation efficiency for degradation of methyl orange dye.