Controllable synthesis of hierarchical ZnO nanodisks for highly photocatalytic activity

ZnO nanodisks consisting of nanocrystallines were successfully synthesized via a simple chemical hydrolysis method in the dimethyl sulfoxide (DMSO)-H2O system. The growth mechanism of the nanodisks were studied by time-dependent experiments, and the morphology of these nanodisks could be readily tuned by simply adjusting the concentration of DMSO. The role of DMSO in the synthetic procedure of ZnO nanostructures has also been studied. Moreover, these prepared ZnO nanostructures exhibit excellent photocatalytic activities in the degradation of methyl orange (MO).