Synthesis of copper oxide nano-rice structures for enhancement of photocatalytic activity under natural sunlight

In this work, copper oxide (CuO) nano-rice structure was prepared by hydrothermal method. The prepared samples were characterized by X-ray diffraction (XRD), field emission scanning electron microscope (FESEM), and UV-visible spectrophotometer. CuO nano-rice structure showed high photocatalytic activity towards degradation of methylene blue (MB). Hydrothermally growth of CuO provided uniformly distributed nano-rice structures with high degradation efficiency (90.41%) and rate constant (kt) 16.6 × 10-2 min-1 for methylene blue degradation.