Synergistic effect of TiO 2 -CuWO 4 on the photocatalytic degradation of atrazine

In this work, CuWO 4 is prepared and its effect of improving photocatalytic degradation of atrazine by TiO 2 as well as the synergetic mechanism is studied. Results show that the addition of CuWO 4 (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 TiO 2 . As the sintering temperate of CuWO 4 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 TiO 2 -CuWO 4 is attributed to the introduction of solid CuWO 4 . The photochemical test results indicate that the photogenerated electrons transfer from irradiated TiO 2 to CuWO 4 , which is beneficial to the O 2 reduction and H 2 O 2 formation in aqueous solution thus promoting the photocatalytic activity of TiO 2 . These observations unveil the importance of improving photocatalytic activity of TiO 2 with Cu-bearing semiconductors.