development of a novel cuwo4/sno2 heterogenous photocatalyst for effective rose bengal dye degradation under visible light

A heterostructure photocatalyst composed of cuwo4-modified sno2 (cuwo4/sno2) was synthesized using a simple wet-chemical methods and evaluated for its ability to degrade rose bengal (rb) dye under visible light irradiation. comprehensive characterization of the samples was conducted using ultraviolet-visible diffuse reflectance spectroscopy (uv-vis-drs), x-ray diffraction (xrd), scanning electron microscopy (sem) with energy-dispersive x-ray spectroscopy (eds), transmission electron microscopy (tem), high-resolution tem (hr-tem), brunauer-emmett-teller surface analysis (bet), and x-ray photoelectron spectroscopy (xps). the results demonstrated that cuwo4/sno2 exhibited significantly superior photocatalytic activity compared to cuwo4 or sno2 alone. this enhanced efficiency is attributed to the effective charge transfer between sno2 and cuwo4 nanoparticles, which considerably reduces electron-hole recombination energy levels. optimal conditions for maximum rb degradation under visible light were found to be a ph of 8, a dye concentration of 20 µm, and a photocatalyst dosage of 0.2 g/l, achieving a high degradation efficiency of 98.5% within 180 minutes. the outstanding photocatalytic performance of cuwo4/sno2 is primarily due to the profecient separation of light induced electron-hole pairs. the reactive species involved in the photocatalytic degradation of rb include holes (h+) and superoxide radicals (o2 •- ). this study highlights the potential of cuwo4/sno2 as an effective photocatalyst for environmental remediation applications.