Abstract
Zinc oxide/reduced graphene oxide nanocomposites (ZnO/rGO) are synthesized via a simple one-pot solvothermal technique. The nanoparticle–nanorod turnability was achieved with the increase in GO additive, which was necessary to control the defect formation. The optimal defect in ZnO/rGO not only increased ZnO/rGO surface and carrier concentration, but also provided the alternative carrier pathway assisted with rGO sheet for electron–hole separation and prolonging carrier recombination. These properties are ideal for photodetection and photocatalytic applications. For photosensing properties, ZnO/rGO shows the improvement of photosensitivity compared with pristine ZnO from 1.51 (ZnO) to 3.94 (ZnO/rGO (20%)). Additionally, applying bending strain on ZnO/rGO enhances its photosensitivity even further, as high as 124% at r = 12.5 mm, due to improved surface area and induced negative piezoelectric charge from piezoelectric effect. Moreover, the photocatalytic activity with methylene blue (MB) was studied. It was observed that the rate of MB degradation was higher in presence of ZnO/rGO than pristine ZnO. Therefore, ZnO/rGO became a promising materials for different applications.
Highlights
To study UV sensing properties based on Zinc oxide/reduced graphene oxide nanocomposites (ZnO/reduced graphene oxide (rGO)), an electrode was prepared on a transparent film
The XRD patterns of graphene oxide (GO) and Zinc oxide (ZnO)/rGO were recorded in the 2θ range of 5 to 80◦
The maximum value of Eu was obtained at a GO content of 20%, indicating to the highest presence of defects/disorder in ZnO/rGO synthesized at 20% GO
Summary
Zinc oxide (ZnO) is a promising n-type semiconductor material that is used in a wide range of applications, such as gas detection [1,2,3,4], dye-sensitized solar cells [5,6,7], antibacterial surface coatings [8], light-emitting diodes (LEDs) [9,10], nanopower generators [11], ultraviolet (UV) detection [12,13,14,15], and photocatalytic applications [16,17,18]. Zhang et al reported that the existence of disorder and surface defects in ZnO crystals could improve the separation of photogenerated electron–hole pairs, preventing recombination and enhancing photocatalytic activity [28]. In addition to a capacity for photogenerated electron transportation from band gap excitation of semiconductors upon UV illumination and flexible mechanical properties that would support a self-carrier generator when bending strain is applied [39], applying tensile strain to ZnO/rGO hybrid nanostructures may improve photosensitivity in terms of increasing carrier density and carrier transfer. Pronay et al reported that rGO laminated TiO2-B NW nanocomposites shows an excellent visible light dye degradation with superior degradation rate This is due to defect creation and the narrowing of energy band gap, together with increasing adsorption by π-π interaction between GO and dye molecules [41]. As-synthesized ZnO/rGO was employed to evaluate UV photosensitivity assisted with applied bending strain and visible light photocatalytic activity of methylene blue (MB) degradation
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