Study of synergistic effect of cellulose on the enhancement of photocatalytic activity of ZnO

Abstract

Semiconductor photocatalysts play a major role in photocatalytic process. Zinc oxide (ZnO) is supposed to be a preferred photocatalyst due to its high photosensitivity, mechanical-thermal stability, tunable morphology and non-toxicity. To enhance the photocatalytic activity of ZnO, cellulose/ZnO composite films (CZ films) with snowflake-like ZnO micro/nanoparticles immobilized in cellulose matrix were prepared by a simple dissolution and regeneration of cellulose and subsequently one-step hydrothermal synthesis of ZnO. The immobilization of ZnO was conducive to overcoming the shortcomings of aggregation easily and reclamation difficulty of scattered nanopowders. The obtained CZ films exhibited excellent photocatalytic efficiency (85.3%) to degrade methylene blue with minor amount of ZnO photocatalyst (\6 mg). The experimental results show that a photocatalytic process involving absorptiondegradation-desorption was proposed. Notably, the synergistic effects between cellulose film and the supported ZnO via absorption and desorption processes were important to enhance the photocatalytic efficiency. This work provided an effective method to support ZnO photocatalyst and improve the photocatalytic efficiency via a functional substrate.Mengya Xu and He Wang have contributed equally.

Photocatalytic Membranes Toward Practical Environmental Remediation: Fundamental, Fabrication, and Application

“…Besides, the hydrothermal method requires high experimental temperature and high‐pressure conditions, which may damage the mechanical properties of photocatalytic membranes. [ 56 ] As Figure a shows, our group prepared recyclable CuInS 2 QDs sensitized ZnO nanorod array film photocatalyst by electrophoretic deposition. CuInS 2 QDs were deposited in ZnO nanorods by controlling the voltage and duration, which improved the photocatalytic performance for absorbing and utilizing the visible light and heterojunction structure.…”

Cu and Ni dual-doped ZnO nanostructures templated by cellulose nanofibrils for the boosted visible-light photocatalytic degradation of wastewater pollutants

“…18–21 Meanwhile, the adapter hydroxyl groups on the NC surface provide adhesive and guiding sites for ZnO adsorption, ensuring the regulation of morphology 22,23 and recycling of catalysts in practical applications. 24–26 The as-prepared ZnO@NCs exhibited superfast absorption 27 and high degradation of organic dyes under UV light 28,29 or sunlight 30,31 irradiation. The synergistic effects of the matrix and doping agents on the visible-light photocatalytic degradation of wastewater pollutants have rarely been explored.…”

Application of ZnO/WO3 Composite Nanofiber Photocatalysts in Textile Wastewater Treatment

“…ZnO is one of the most commonly used photocatalytic materials in the third generation of wide-band-gap semiconductors, and its band gap is about 3.2 eV [28,29]. It has a conductivity of about 10 −7 -10 −3 S/cm [30].…”