ZnO as photocatalyst: An approach to waste water treatment

ZnO nanorods having uniform size have been synthesized using hydrothermal method. Different standard analytical techniques were employed to investigate the microscopic structure and optical properties of the prepared sample. The formation of the hexagonal wurtzite structure of ZnO was established by XRD and SEM analyses. UV-visible spectra of the as-synthesized ZnO show absorption band edge in UV region at 373 nm, corresponding to which the calculated band gap of ZnO nanorods is found to be 3.4 eV. Photodegradation of methylene blue (MB) using ZnO as photocatalyst have also been studied. Experiments revealed that ZnO nanorods with high aspect ratio can degrade 65% of initial concentration of MB in only 50 min. (c) 2019 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved. Selection and Peer-review under responsibility of the scientific committee of the Third International Conference on Materials Science (ICMS2020).

Automated summary

Uniform size ZnO nanorods were synthesized using a hydrothermal method, with a hexagonal wurtzite structure and a band gap of 3.4 eV. The ZnO nanorods were found to degrade 65% of initial concentration of methylene blue in just 50 minutes when used as a photocatalyst.