Effect of hexamethylene tetramine (HMTA) surfactant on the structural characteristics and photocatalytic activity of Cu-ZnO nanoparticle materials fabricated by the hydrothermal method

Abstract

The experiment had fabricated and studied the properties of ZnO and Cu doped ZnO nanoparticles with the change of the hexamethylene tetramine surfactant content (HMTA) with molar ratio Zn^{2 +}: HMTA = 1: x; x = 1, 2 and 4. The methods were used to study the characteristics of materials such as: XRD, raman shift, SEM, reflection spectrum. The results show that, when the content of surfactant HMTA increased (1-4 mol versus the moles of Zn²⁺), the size of the nanorods crystals of fabricated materials had reduced from 64.5 to 21.7 nm. The reflectance spectrum of Cu doped ZnO materials samples was lower in the visible light region compared to pure ZnO samples. The photocatalytic properties for decomposition of methylene blue organic dye of the Cu doped ZnO sample (with the greatest concentration of HMTA surfactant of 4 mol versus the moles of Zn²⁺) reached 98% after 40 minutes of ultraviolet light irradiation, with the rate constant k= 0,13261 min^-1.