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

• ][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

• diameters of 5 to 7 nm in size (Figure 1a). Measurements of the lattice fringe widths on the high-resolution TEM micrographs (see Figure 1c) confirm the wurtzite structure of the zinc oxide crystallites. Fringe widths of 0.28 nm, 0.16 nm and 0.19 nm measured on different images show the dominance of the