Fabrication and Photocatalytic Activity of Cu₂O Nanobelts on Nanoporous Cu Substrate

In this paper, we report the fabrication of the photocatalysts composed of Cu₂O nanobelts and nanoporous Cu (NP Cu) substrate, which is obtained by soaking the NP Cu in dehydrated ethanol. The NP Cu substrate is achieved by dealloying of Ti_40.6Zr_9.4Cu_40.6Ni_6.3Sn_3.1 amorphous ribbons in HF solutions. The dealloying process is considered to be a thermally activated process, obeying the Arrhenius law. The surface diffusivity increases with increasing dealloying temperature and concentration of HF solutions. The activation energy of the diffusion of Cu adatoms is estimated to be 76.4 kJ/mol. The Cu₂O nanobelts with the width of 10–15 nm and the length of about 1 μm are formed on the surface of NP Cu after immersion in dehydrated ethanol. The photocatalysts of Cu₂O on nanoporous Cu exhibit superior photocatalytic activity toward the degradation of methyl orange and methylene blue under the irradiation of the sunlight due to the coexistence of Cu₂O semiconductor nanobelts and large amount of heterojunctions as flowing path for photoelectrons.