Synergistic effect of TiO2-CuWO4 on the photocatalytic degradation of atrazine.

In this work, CuWO4 is prepared and its effect of improving photocatalytic degradation of atrazine by TiO2 as well as the synergetic mechanism is studied. Results show that the addition of CuWO4 (50 mg/L) into the reaction system can significantly enhance the efficiency of atrazine degradation, resulting in an increased degradation efficiency of 92.1% after 270 min, which is 1.94 times higher than that of the single TiO2. As the sintering temperate of CuWO4 was increased, the degradation efficiency of atrazine increased initially and then deceased after reaching a maximum at 500 °C. The origin of the synergistic effect of TiO2-CuWO4 is attributed to the introduction of solid CuWO4. The photochemical test results indicate that the photogenerated electrons transfer from irradiated TiO2 to CuWO4, which is beneficial to the O2 reduction and H2O2 formation in aqueous solution thus promoting the photocatalytic activity of TiO2. These observations unveil the importance of improving photocatalytic activity of TiO2 with Cu-bearing semiconductors.