Visible-light induced degradation of diphenyl urea and polyethylene using polythiophene decorated CuFe₂O₄ nanohybrids

The present work reports facile synthesis of CuFe₂O₄ nanoparticles via co-precipitation method and formulation of its nanohybrids with polythiophene (PTh). The structural and morphological properties were investigated using fourier transform infrared spectroscopy (FT-IR), X-ray diffraction (XRD), scanning electron microscopy coupled with energy dispersive spectra (SEM-EDS) and UV-Vis spectroscopy. The band gap was found to decrease with increase in the loading of PTh and was found to be 2.52 eV for 1-PTh/CuFe₂O₄, 2.15 eV for 3-PTh/CuFe₂O₄ and 1.89 eV for 5-PTh/CuFe₂O₄. The nanohybrids were utilized as photocatalysts for visible light induced degradation of diphenyl urea. Diphenyl urea showed 65% degradation using 150 mg catalyst within 120 min. Polyethylene (PE) was also degraded using these nanohybrids under visible light as well as microwave irradiation to compare its catalytic efficiency under both conditions. Almost 50% of PE was degraded under microwave and 22% under visible light irradiation using 5-PTh/CuFe₂O₄. The degraded diphenyl urea fragments were analyzed using LCMS and a tentative mechanism of degradation was proposed.