Superhydrophilic zinc oxide film prepared by controlling ZnO microrods growth and its attractive recyclable photocatalytic performance

• Published in: Thin solid films Vol. 539; pp. 23 - 28
• Main Authors: Dai, Kai, Chen, Zheng, Lu, Luhua, Zhu, Guangping, Liu, Zhongliang, Liu, Qinzhuang
• Format: Journal Article
• Language: English
• Published: Amsterdam Elsevier B.V 31.07.2013; Elsevier
• Subjects: Chemistry; Condensed matter: electronic structure, electrical, magnetic, and optical properties; Condensed matter: structure, mechanical and thermal properties; Cross-disciplinary physics: materials science; rheology; Exact sciences and technology; General and physical chemistry; General, apparatus; Growth mechanism; Materials science; Methods of deposition of films and coatings; film growth and epitaxy; Optical properties and condensed-matter spectroscopy and other interactions of matter with particles and radiation; Photocatalysis; Photoluminescence; Physics; Structure and morphology; thickness; Superhydrophilic; Surface physical chemistry; Surfaces and interfaces; thin films and whiskers (structure and nonelectronic properties); Theory and models of film growth; Thin film structure and morphology; Thin films; Zinc oxide; Thin films; Zinc oxide; Photocatalysis; Growth mechanism; Superhydrophilic; Scanning electron microscopy; X-ray microscopy; Photoluminescence; Crystallinity; XRD; Dispersive spectrometry; Methylene blue; Reflectivity; Time dependence; Transmission electron microscopy; Reflection spectrum; Ultraviolet irradiation
• ISSN: 0040-6090; 1879-2731
• DOI: 10.1016/j.tsf.2013.04.135

Superhydrophilic functional materials have been found to be of great value for a variety of practical applications in recent years. In this paper, zinc oxide (ZnO) microrod films have been directly synthesized on a large-area zinc substrate via a simple solution method. Morphological and structural observation and crystallinity of the grown products were carried out using scanning electron microscopy, X-ray diffraction, energy dispersive spectrometer, transmission electron microscopy, ultraviolet (UV)–vis diffuse reflectance spectroscopy and photoluminescence (PL) spectroscopy. The influence of reaction time on the size and shapes of the as-prepared ZnO samples was studied. It was found that superhydrophilic ZnO films at reaction time of 20h were made up of uniform pure ZnO microrods with 600nm in average diameter and 6μm in length. Room-temperature PL spectra of the ZnO products showed a UV emission and a broad green band. Photocatalytic performance and sample stability were studied. Under UV light irradiation over 95% of methylene blue was degraded by ZnO microrod films in 4h, ZnO microrod film can be easily separated from the solution, and no observable performance degradation was observed after 5cycles. •Superhydrophilic ZnO microrod films were successfully synthesized.•ZnO microrods are single crystalline with the hexagonal wurtzite structure.•ZnO microrod films can be easily separated from the solution.•Superhydrophilic ZnO microrod films can be reused.