In-situ chemical vapor deposition to fabricate Cuprous oxide/copper sulfide core-shell flowers with boosted and stable wide-spectral region photocatalytic performance.

CuO is widely used in the visible-light photocatalytic field, but its photocatalytic activity and stability still need to be further enhanced. Thus, searching for an efficient method to inhibit photocorrosion of CuO and boost its photogenerated charge carriers' separation is very important and challenging. Herein, CuO@CuS core-shell hexapetalous flowers were synthesized by hydrothermal and in-situ chemical vapor deposition (CVD) strategy. The CuO hexapetalous flowers were firstly obtained through hydrothermal procedure, and then CuS in-situ grew on CuO to form core-shell structure by CVD, which effectively inhibited the photocorrosion of CuO. Meanwhile, CuO@CuS core-shell structure could extend their light absorption ranges from 200 to 1500 nm; promote the separation of electrons and holes in photocatalytic system. Thus, under the wide-spectral region, CuO@CuS exhibited excellent photocatalytic performance for the degradation of tetracycline at 91% with good cycling ability, resulting from the effective separation of photogenerated charges, more free radicals such as OH and O, increases of utilization rate of visible-light. These results indicate that in-situ CVD strategy is a feasible method to improve visible-light photocatalytic activity and stability of CuO.