Characterization of zinc oxide nanocrystals with different morphology for application in ultraviolet‐light photocatalytic performances on rhodamine B (original) (raw)

ZnO nanostructures of different morphology (nanorods, nano-leaf, nanotubes) were favorably grown by chemical precipitation process. The prepared ZnO nanostructures were systematically characterized by absorption spectroscopy, emission spectroscopy, XRD, SEM and FTIR study. XRD results showed the hexagonal wurtzite phase of the synthesized ZnO nanostructures. The structural properties like average crystallite size, lattice constants, volume of the unit cell, atomic fraction, and structural bonds were also studied. The optical band gap of the synthesized ZnO nanocrystals are varied from 3.52 eV to 3.69 eV with high quantum yield of the blue emission (~ 420 nm). Urbach energy for ZnO nanocrystals was calculated to be 0.702eV, 0.901eV, 0.993eV for nanorods, nano-leaf and tube like ZnO crystals respectively. Morphology of the fabricated nanostructures was investigated by SEM. The photocatalytic degradation of Rhodamine B (Rh B) in solution under UV-irradiation was explored with different ZnO morphology. The photocatalytic experiments showed that ZnO nano-leaf showed a higher degradation rate of photocatalytic activity of photodegrading This article is protected by copyright. All rights reserved. Rh B compared to the other tube shape and rods shape nanostructures. The Rh B dye considerably degraded by ∼79.05%, 74.41%, 69.8% within 120 min in the presence of asfabricated fern nano-leaf, nanotubes, nanorods of the ZnO nanocrystals at room temperature.