Experimental and Theoretical Verification of WO₃ Based Nanocomposites for Their Application as Efficient Photo Catalyst for Treatment of Industrial Wastewater

In this research work, CuS and WO₃ nanoparticles were synthesized by a simple, facile and effective hydrothermal method followed by the fabrication of nanocomposites of 10, 12 & 14% CuS:WO₃. The prepared samples were characterized by various characterization techniques including X-ray diffraction (XRD), UV–Visible (UV–vis), photoluminescence (PL), Energy dispersive X-ray (EDX) and field emission scanning electron microscopy (FE-SEM) for the confirmation and investigation of fabricated nanocomposites. The particle size of fabricated WO₃ was 46.01 nm which was reduced to 37.14 nm for 14% CuS:WO₃ sample. Additionally, UV visible and PL analysis confirmed the suppression of band gap (2.61 to 2.25 eV) and photogenerated electron/hole pair respectively. Photocatalytic activity of as prepared nanocomposites was investigated under visible light irradiation against rhodamine B (RhB) dye. Quite interestingly, the photodegradation efficiency of 14% CuS-WO₃ is 94.91% which is much higher as compared to pure WO₃ which attributes to the smaller particle size and bad gap energy which enables the efficient utilization of visible light leading to the generation of reactive species. Reusability experiments confirmed the photostability of samples and pH tests have also been conducted to investigate the optimum pH for degradation reaction. For investigation of complete mineralization of RhB dye from contaminated water, TOC analysis has been conducted. Additionally, RF module of COMOSL Multiphysics 5.3a has been used to simulate a 2D model to correlated the experiment with the theoretical results for better understanding. Graphical Abstract: [Figure not available: see fulltext.]