Enhanced visible light photocatalysis through fast crystallization of zinc oxide nanorods

• Sunandan Baruah,
• Mohammad Abbas Mahmood,
• Myo Tay Zar Myint,
• Tanujjal Bora and
• Joydeep Dutta

Beilstein J. Nanotechnol. 2010, 1, 14–20, doi:10.3762/bjnano.1.3

• Abstract Hydrothermally grown ZnO nanorods have inherent crystalline defects primarily due to oxygen vacancies that enhance optical absorption in the visible spectrum, opening up possibilities for visible light photocatalysis. Comparison of photocatalytic activity of ZnO nanorods and nanoparticle films on

• ][3][4]. Optical absorption in the ultraviolet region (peaking around 220 nm) [5] and low photoefficiency [6][7] are factors that deter the wide scale use of TiO2 for photocatalytic activities under sunlight. Zinc oxide (ZnO), with a high surface reactivity owing to a large number of native defect

• microwave irradiation) have already been reported in a previous publication [20]. A higher optical absorption in the visible region was observed in this case. The faster degradation of methylene blue (MB) in the presence of nonstoichiometric crystallites of ZnO prepared through fast crystallization can be