Photocatalytically active zinc oxide microstructural architecture towards the degradation of some model pollutants

Abstract

Immobilized zinc oxide microstructural architecture composed of wires, rods, tubes and tetrapods was synthesized via carbothermal reduction at 900°C in an oxidative muffle furnace which was oven quenched after 15-minute reaction time. These diverse ZnO crystal habits were characterized using field emission scanning electron microscope (FESEM), Xray diffraction (XRD) and photoluminescence (PL). A strong band gap emission was observed corresponding to 3.20 eV with suppressed visible emission indicative of good crystal quality as supported by XRD data showing a wurtzite structure with a = 3.25 Å and c = 5.28 Å. The synthesized architecture was used as an efficient photocatalyst in the degradation of several model pollutants namely, methylene blue (MB), rhodamine B (RB), xylidine (XY) and 2,6-dichlorophenol (DCP).