Mineralization of rhodamine 6G dye over rose flower-like ZnO nanomaterials

The rose flower-like ZnO nanomaterials (R-ZnO) were synthesized by the chemical route for the photocatalytic degradation of rhodamine 6G (Rh6G) dye. Each R-ZnO was composed of several sheet like petals of average thickness of similar to 100-150 nm. The synthesized R-ZnO photocatalyst showed enormously high degradation rate of similar to 96% within 60 min towards Rh6G-dye under UV light illumination. The fast photodegradation might attribute to the rapid generation of oxyradical through (e) over bar -h(+) separation pairs between the conduction (CB) and valence band (VB) of ZnO. The mass spectroscopy was carried out to investigate the mineralized intermediates after the photocatalytic degradation of Rh6G-dye. (C) 2013 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.