Facile preparation of porous flower-like ZnO microspheres with excellent photocatalytic performance

Porous flower-like ZnO microspheres were successfully fabricated by a facile, green and cost efficient method. In this method, the flower-like precursor was first synthesized and subsequently annealed at 450 degrees C for 30 min. The SEM and TEM results reveal that the obtained microspheres well inherit the morphology of the precursor and possess numerous mesopores which originated from the release of carbon dioxide and water during annealing process. Noteworthily, porous flower-like ZnO microspheres display significantly enhanced photocatalytic activity for the degradation of methylene blue (MB) compared to hexagonal ZnO disks. The improved photocatalytic activity of flower-like ZnO microspheres can be ascribed to their higher specific surface areas. (C) 2014 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.