Synthesis and characterization of zinc oxide based nanostructures and their application for photocatalytic degradation of organic pollutants

Abstract

In the present work, we have adopted chemical methods to fabricate the nanoparticles or nanocomposites as per necessity of our application part. Firstly, simple hydrothermal method was adopted to fabricate ZnO nanoparticles without the addition of any capping agent. The fabricated ZnO NPs were well crystalline in nature as confirmed from XRD results. The fabricated ZnO NPs were highly pure in nature. In the synthesis, hydrazine hydrate was used as mineralizer which played an important role in the nucleation and growth of the ZnO nanoparticles. Hydrazine hydrate can coordinate with Zn2+ ions to form a weak coordination compound, i.e. [Zn(N2H4)2] 2+ which can lead to the formation of ZnO. Additionally, it is also known to provide hydroxyl anions by hydrolyzation. The UV vis analysis of the sample depicted a strong narrow absorption peak at 376 nm, a significant and characteristic peak for the absorption band of the wurtzite hexagonal pure ZnO. The synthesized ZnO nanoparticles acted as an efficient photocatalyst for the degradation of ARS dye which might be attributed to electron hole separation generated on the surface of ZnO nanoparticles under UV light Further, the synthesized ZnO nanoparticles were used to fabricate AgCl-ZnO hierarchical structures. Hierarchical AgCl/ZnO nanostructures having cauliflower-like morphology were fabricated by a template-free chemical method. newline