Cuprous Oxide As A Semiconductor Photocatalyst Used For Organic Pollutants Degradation

Abstract

This paper contains discussion about photocatalytic water treatment. Contaminated wateris purified by semiconductor photocatalytic material cuprous oxide exposed to light. Cuprousoxide is inexpensive and easy to synthesize and does not need any additional energy for its production.Cuprous oxide is synthesized purely chemically and the reaction requires commonly usedchemicals as sodium hydroxide, cupric sulphate and ascorbic acid. The photocatalytic activity ofcuprous oxide was examined on degradation of methyl orange dye that is used as a substitute fororganic pollutants. The best achieved level of methyl orange degradation was 61.88 %. At the endof this paper the system for photocatalytic degradation was designed.