RESEARCH PAPER Zeolite-based CuO nanotubes catalysts: investigating the characterization, mechanism, and decolouration process of methylene blue Ting Cui • Zhifeng Liu • Xuerong Zheng • Zhichao Liu • Yajun Li • Wei Li • Bo Wang • Keying Guo • Jianhua Han Received: 2 April 2014 / Accepted: 9 August 2014 Ó Springer Science+Business Media Dordrecht 2014 Abstract Novel zeolite-based CuO nanotubes com- posites were prepared from zeolite-based Cu nano- wires by simple thermal oxidation process. The Cu nanowires/zeolite was prepared by reducing a copper– TMEDA complex in an aqueous-cyclohexane bilayer system and using CTAB as a soft template via hydrothermal chemical conversion method. The diam- eters of the nanowires in the composites are about 300–450 nm with rather smooth surfaces and the diameters of CuO nanotubes in the composites are about 600 nm and their surfaces are rough. It was found that such composites could be used in the photocatalytic decolouration of methylene blue because zeolite bed and CuO form new bands of Cu–O–Si or Cu–O–Al, which act as an electron trapper instead of traditional H 2 O 2 method. Under visible light irradiation, the CuO nanotubes/zeolite showed photocatalytic activities higher than those of pure CuO powder and zeolite. Its decolouration rate has reached 91.5 % within 15 min and the whole decoloration process has completed within 60 min. The as-prepared composites were relatively stable and could be recycled without considering loss of activity. Keywords Zeolite  CuO  Nanotubes  Photocatalytic  Decolouration  Environmental effects Introduction The world is facing a pollution crisis due to the development of various industries, and a huge quantity of wastewater was discharged into soils and water systems (Liu et al. 2012). The treatment of toxic and persistent organic pollutants in the aquatic environ- ment is one of the most serious challenges facing by environmental scientists. Semiconducting material was used as wastewater containing organic pollutants due to its photocatalytic properties (Franco et al. 2009; Janus and Morawski 2007). Recently, a great deal of attention has been devoted to develop titanium dioxide (TiO 2 ) semiconductor especially in nanosized TiO 2 used as photocatalyst due to its low toxicity, low cost, and chemical stability (Zainudin et al. 2010; Abella ´n et al. 2009; Alwash et al. 2013). However, the spectrum of TiO 2 photoelectrodes absorption is lim- ited to UV region. Similar to TiO 2 , copper oxide T. Cui  Z. Liu (&)  Z. Liu  Y. Li  B. Wang  K. Guo  J. Han School of Materials Science and Engineering, Tianjin Chengjian University, Tianjin 300384, China e-mail: tjulzf@163.com X. Zheng Key Laboratory of Advanced Ceramics and Machining Technology of Ministry of Education, School of Materials Science and Engineering, Tianjin University, Tianjin 300072, China W. Li School of Architecture, Tianjin Chengjian University, Tianjin 300384, China 123 J Nanopart Res (2014) 16:2608 DOI 10.1007/s11051-014-2608-7