Growth and characterization of flower-like Ag/ZnO heterostructure composites with enhanced photocatalytic performance
Source abstract
Abstract
Flower-like Ag/ZnO heterostructure composites were prepared through a solvothermal method without surfactants or templates. The products were characterized by X-ray powder diffraction, scanning electron microscopy, transmission electron microscopy, and photoluminescence (PL) spectroscopy. Results demonstrate that flower-like Ag/ZnO heterostructure composites were composed of wurtzite ZnO flowers coated by face-center-cubic Ag nanoparticles. The growth process of flower-like ZnO crystals was investigated, and a possible growth mechanism was proposed. The photocatalytic activity of the as-prepared flower-like Ag/ZnO samples, pure ZnO samples, and commercial TiO2 (Degussa, P-25) was tested with the photocatalytic degradation of methylene blue. Results show that the Ag/ZnO heterostructures were superior in photocatalytic activity to the pure ZnO samples and the commercial TiO2 (Degussa, P-25), but the mixture of Ag (0.1 wt%) particles and ZnO flowers did not, which implies that the heterostructure promoted the separation of photogenerated electron–hole pairs, enhancing the photocatalytic activity. That was primarily verified by the PL results.
Source: openaire · Quality: candidate unverified · Source record ↗
Research context
OpenAlex topics: ZnO doping and properties · Advanced Photocatalysis Techniques · Copper-based nanomaterials and applications
SciVX discovery tags are terminology-based. OpenAlex topics are source-provided classifications.
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