Preparation of aluminum foil-supported nano-sized ZnO thin films and its photocatalytic degradation to phenol under visible light irradiation

The zinc oxide thin films on aluminum foil have been successfully prepared by sol‐gel method with methyl glycol as solvent. Thefilmwascharacterized bymeans ofXRD,TG,UV‐vis,SEMandAFM,whichshowthat theZnO/Alfilmisformedbyalayerof ZnO nano-sized particles with average diameter of 52.2 nm. Under the initial concentration of 20 mg/L phenol solution (500 mL) and visible light irradiation time of 3 h, more than 40% of the initial phenol was totally mineralized using two pieces of ZnO/Al thin film as photocatalyst with an efficient irradiation area of 400 cm 2 . It is a promising visible light responded photocatalyst for the