Nanofunctionalized pulse-electroformed copper/graphene oxide tubular composite for efficient textile dye degradation under visible light irradiation

With the millions of dyes being used in textile industries, there is a challenge for humanity to remediate the waste fluid emerged from these industries and provide a solution to protect the natural water around us. In this context, we report the manufacturing process to develop nanofunctionalized, electroformed tube for the degradation of Azo dyes which are considered as poorly biodegradable industrial pollutants. Copper/graphene oxide electroform tubes have been developed via in-house pulse electroforming setup. Vertically grown ZnO nanorods were synthesized over electroformed electroform tube via chemical synthesis route and were characterized using scanning electron microscopy, energy dispersive spectroscopy, X-ray diffractometer, UV–Vis diffuse reflectance spectrophotometer, and microhardness test. The as-synthesized substrates were utilized for photodegradation of organic dyes under sunlight irradiation. The targeted dyes for evaluation of photocatalytic efficiency are methyl orange (MO), and methylene blue (MB). The results reveal that copper/graphene–zinc oxide electroform tubes provides higher photodegradation efficiency 98.24% in 120 min for MO, and 98.95% in 135 min for MB dye. The proposed functional composite platform can be envisioned for scaling it up for large volume waste water treatment in textile industries.