Synthesis, characterization and efficient photocatalytic activity of novel Ca/ZnO-Al2O3 nanomaterial

Highly active ZnO-based biomimetic fern-like microleaves for photocatalytic water decontamination using sunlight

“…The unmodified ZnO (67.9 m 2 g -1 ) and ZnO@ZnS (69.7 m 2 g -1 ) architectures offered a superior specific area to the Ag-decorated (48.9 m 2 g -1 ) and Ni-doped (33.5 m 2 g -1 ) ZnO micro/nanoferns due to the better dendritic definition of microleaves and reduced compactness. In spite of this, all the biomimetic-obtained photocatalysts revealed a higher specific area than most of the micro/nanometric ZnO-based photocatalysts, which was crucial to enhance photoremediation efficiency [22][23][24][25][26][27][28][29][30]. Therefore, fern-like ZnO-based photocatalysts may emerge as a more interesting architecture than simple microrods, nanorods or nanowires due to the (i) higher electron diffusion length; (ii) higher accessible specific surface area for pollutants and light; and (iii) higher capability to absorb light since this architecture due to enhanced light trapping in the fractal architec-ture and trapping efficiency on the angle of the incident light (in contrast to what has been observed for other morphologies) [22,23,43,56,57].…”

“…However, it shows limited photocatalytic activity when sunlight is used because of its wide band gap (3.36 eV), which requires an excitation wavelength in the UV domain (λ < 390 nm) [19][20][21][22][23][24]. During the last few decades, it has been demonstrated that the recombination rate of photogenerated holes and electrons is a key factor that determines the photocatalytic activity, as it reduces the quantum yield and causes energy wasting [19][20][21][22][23][24]. Therefore, the successful band gap modulation of ZnO photocatalysts by, for example, doping is required to minimize the recombination losses of charge carriers and to extend the light response to visible light.…”

Synthesis, Characterization and Photocatalytic Activity of N-doped Cu2O/ZnO Nanocomposite on Degradation of Methyl Red

“…However, the degradation efficiency was decreased when the amount of the catalyst dosage was beyond 180 mg/L. This might be due to light-scattering and screening effects [41,42]. Besides, agglomeration also occurs when the concentration of catalyst is high; which results in the decreasing of catalyst surface area and causes diminishing of degradation efficiency [42,43].…”

XRD Structure Study on Nickel Doped Zinc Oxide Nanoparticles Synthesized by Coprecipitation Method

“…Many methods were used to synthesize ZnO nanoparticles such as the sol-gel [6], coprecipitation [7] [8], hydrothermal, chemical bath deposition, and electrochemical deposition [9]. Among these various methods, the coprecipitation method has a high potential and is an economical, simple, and efficient deposition technique [10].…”