Precursor Controlled Copper-Doped Carbon Quantum Dots Efficient for the Degradation of Rhodamine-B

The dyeing industry wastewater has greatly hampered the ecological environment. The carbon quantum dots (CQDs) is a promising catalyst for photocatalytic degradation. To control the specified structure of CQDs, a designable-green deep eutectic solvents (DESs) was targeted as the precursor. In this work, a copper-doped solid-state Cu-CQDs was successfully prepared by combustion method from glycerol/choline chloride/CuCl 2 ·2H 2 O DESs, and characterized by Fourier transform infrared spectroscopy, XRD, XPS, UV–Vis spectroscopy, and fluorescence spectroscopy. The analysis revealed that the metallic copper-doped Cu-CQDs have better morphological and structural properties and exhibit good optics characteristics. The prepared CQDs were applied to the photocatalytic degradation of Rhodamine-B (RhB). It was found that the ⋅O 2 − was the main active specie, and it can efficient degrade RhB up to 95%. Graphical abstract