Facile one-step synthesis of PhC2Cu nanowires with enhanced photocatalytic performance

In recent years, the research of Phenylethynylcopper (PhC2Cu) in the field of photocatalysis has attracted much attention. However, its preparation requires two steps, which take lengthy 9 days. In this paper, A highly rapid and facile one-step method that directly used copper acetate and phenylacetylene as raw materials and ascorbic acid as reducing agent to synthesize PhC2Cu nanowires was successfully developed. The kinetic studies indicated that the synthetic reaction follows a pseudo-second-order equation through electrical conductivity. Comparative studies on the crystal structures, morphologies, optical properties of PhC2Cu prepared by the traditional two-step and this one-step method were conducted by using XRD, SEM, UV–vis Drs, FT-IR, Raman Spectra and Photocurrent. Meanwhile, the PhC2Cu nanowires exhibited excellent photocatalytic activity for the degradation of MV (methyl violet) and glyphosate. Importantly, this facile and rapid method greatly improves the preparation efficiency of PhC2Cu, and the obtained PhC2Cu also shows higher photocatalytic activity. This remarkable progress enables the possibility of large-scale and efficient preparation of PhC2Cu with high photocatalytic activity, indicating their good application prospect in the fields of photocatalysis.