Au nanoparticles decorated CuO nanowire arrays with enhanced photocatalytic properties

Au nanoparticles decorated CuO nanowire arrays have been successfully prepared and investigated their photocatalytic activity. It has been found that Au CuO nanowire arrays exhibit enhanced photocatalytic performance with 92.7% decomposition of rhodamine B (RhB) after 8 h reaction under UV exposure, which is much higher than that of CuO nanowire arrays (65%) and commercial CuO powders (44%). (C) 2013 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.