Structure and photocatalytic activity of Ni-doped ZnO nanorods

Abstract The one-dimensional (1D) Zn1−xNixO (x = 0, 0.02, 0.05, 0.10) nanorods have been synthesized by a simple hydrothermal method. New bands show at ∼130 cm−1 in the Raman spectra of Ni-doped ZnO nanorods and their relative intensity depends on the doping concentration of nickel. The optical band gap of the ZnO nanorods have been tuned by Ni-doping, which is revealed by absorption spectra. The photocatalytic activity of Zn1−xNixO was studied by comparing the degradation rate of rhodamine B (RB) under UV-light irradiation. It was found that Zn0.95Ni0.05O exhibited the highest photocatalytic degradation efficiency among the samples.