ZnO Nanorods Grown on Rhombic ZnO Microrods for Enhanced Photocatalytic Activity

Yufu Zhu; Jiaying Yan; Lei Zhou; Liangdong Feng

doi:10.3390/nano12173085

ZnO Nanorods Grown on Rhombic ZnO Microrods for Enhanced Photocatalytic Activity

Nanomaterials (Basel). 2022 Sep 5;12(17):3085. doi: 10.3390/nano12173085.

Authors

Yufu Zhu¹, Jiaying Yan¹, Lei Zhou², Liangdong Feng³

Affiliations

¹ Jiangsu Provincial Engineering Research Center for Biomedical Materials and Advanced Medical Devices, Faculty of Mechanical & Material Engineering, Huaiyin Institute of Technology, Huaian 223003, China.
² Faculty of Mathematics and Physics, Huaiyin Institute of Technology, Huaian 223003, China.
³ Department of Chemical Engineering, Huaiyin Institute of Technology, Huaian 223003, China.

Abstract

In this paper, the formation of rhombic ZnO microrods surrounded by ZnO nanorods was realized on the surfaces of zinc foils using a hydrothermal method. The photocatalytic degradation of Rhodamine B solution was used to test the photocatalytic performance of the prepared samples. Compared with the rhombic Zn(OH)F and ZnO microrods grown on zinc foils, the hierarchical micro/nanostructures formed by ZnO nanorods surrounding the surfaces of rhombic ZnO microrods have better photocatalytic performance. The experimental results are mainly due to the fact that the hierarchical ZnO micro/nanostructures formed by ZnO nanorods surrounding the surface of the rhombic ZnO microrods have a larger surface area compared with the rhombic Zn(OH)F and ZnO microrods. More importantly, the photocatalytic circulation experiments indicate that ZnO nanorods grown on rhombic ZnO microrods can be recycled and have a relatively stable photocatalytic performance.

Keywords: hierarchical ZnO micro/nanostructures; photocatalytic activity; rhombic ZnO microrods.

Grants and funding

This work was supported by the Undergraduate Innovation and Entrepreneurship Training Program of Huaiyin Institute of Technology (grant number 202211049354XJ) and Qing Lan Project of Jiangsu Province.