Photodegradation of Methylene Blue using Copper Oxide Prepared by Hydrothermal Method

摘要

Methylene blue amongst widely used colouring agents in industries. Discharging of MB without proper treatment leads to serious negative effects towards aquatic life as well as to the humans. The easiest way for MB treatment is photodegradation using sunlight to oxidize the methylene blue. This work demonstrated photodegradation of methylene blue using copper oxide prepared by hydrothermal process which known as an adequate ways to obtain desirable crystals with mild condition, controllable morphology, low aggregation and high crystallinity. Hydrothermal process was conducted with varied temperature, concentration of precursor and addition of NaOH. Copper oxide prepared were then characterized using scanning electron microscope (SEM), X-Ray Diffraction (XRD) and Brunauer Emmett Teller (BET). Subsequent results indicates increase in the size of structure as precursor concentration increased. Crystallinity also increased with increasing temperature and addition of NaOH to precursor creates huge impact to copper oxide morphologies, phase and removal performance. The optimum parameter of hydrothermal process with 80% dye removal percentage is 0.05 M of copper acetate and urea, 134 °C and addition of 1 M of NaOH.