Template synthesis and characterization of Cu 2 O/TiO 2 coaxial nanocable for photocatalysis

Coaxial nanocable consisted of p-type Cu 2 O nanowires and n-type TiO 2 nanotubes arrays was prepared in the porous anodic aluminum oxide(AAO) template via the sol-gel method and subsequent electrodeposition method. X-ray diffraction analysis identified an anatase structure of the TiO 2 nanotubes and cubic structure of the Cu 2 O nanowires. The obtained samples were also characterized by scanning electron microscopy(SEM), transmission electron microscopy(TEM) and energy dispersive X-ray spectroscopy(EDS). The diffrence of open circuit potential of the coaxial nanocable electrode was larger than that of the TiO 2 nanotubes electrode under ultraviolet illumination, which means doping with Cu 2 O could improve the photovoltage effectively. Meanwhile, nanocable arrays exhibited a high activity for photodegrading Rhodamine B under Xe lamp irradiation and the photocatalysis degradation efficiency was up to 98.69% after degradation for 7 h. The enhanced photocatalytic activity could be attributed to the high migration efficiency of photoinduced electrons, which may suppress the charge recombination effectively.