Fabrication of 3D structured ZnO nanorod/reduced graphene oxide hydrogels and their use for photo-enhanced organic dye removal

Van Hoang Luan; Huynh Ngoc Tien; Seung Hyun Hur

doi:10.1016/j.jcis.2014.08.071

Fabrication of 3D structured ZnO nanorod/reduced graphene oxide hydrogels and their use for photo-enhanced organic dye removal

J Colloid Interface Sci. 2015 Jan 1:437:181-186. doi: 10.1016/j.jcis.2014.08.071. Epub 2014 Sep 16.

Authors

Van Hoang Luan¹, Huynh Ngoc Tien¹, Seung Hyun Hur²

Affiliations

¹ School of Chemical Engineering, University of Ulsan, Daehak-ro 93, Nam-gu, Ulsan 680-749, South Korea.
² School of Chemical Engineering, University of Ulsan, Daehak-ro 93, Nam-gu, Ulsan 680-749, South Korea. Electronic address: shhur@ulsan.ac.kr.

PMID: 25313482
DOI: 10.1016/j.jcis.2014.08.071

Abstract

Hybrid 3-dimensional (3D) structures composed of zinc oxide (ZnO) nanorods and reduced graphene oxide hydrogel (rGOH) were fabricated by chemical reaction between Zn ions and GO followed by in-situ lateral growth of ZnO nanorods using Zn ions as seed points. The 3D networked ZnO nanorod-rGOH (ZNR-rGOH) fabricated in this study exhibited excellent methylene blue (MB) removal efficiency due to efficient physical adsorption of dye molecules because of electrostatic attractive forces and enhanced photocatalytic activity by the laterally grown ZnO nanorods. The Langmuir-Hinshelwood rate constant of ZNR-rGOH was 4-fold higher than that of pristine rGO due to the enhanced photocatalytic effects obtained by incorporating laterally grown ZnO nanorods inside the rGOH network.

Keywords: Methylene blue; Reduced graphene oxide hydrogel; ZnO nanorods.