Growth of ZnO nanorods via low temperature hydrothermal method and their application for Hydrogen production

Abstract

Here, we illustrate the growth of ZnO-NRs through low temperature hydrothermal process on ZnO thin film seed layer. Indium Tin Oxide (ITO) is selected to be substrate material for all experimental condition. The crucial parameters in the growth process are systematically studied. The precursor concentration of zinc nitrate (Zn(NO3)2) and hexamethylenetetramine (HMTA) were varied from 10 mM to 100 mM, respectively. Regarding to FE-SEM images found that the morphology of ZnO-NRs strongly corresponds with the precursor concentration. The average diameter of the ZnO-NRs starts increasing from 104.38 nm to 325 nm when the precursor concentration was risen during 10 - 60 mM. However, the nanorod-like dense film structure due to the coalescence occurred when the precursor concentration reached to 80 mM. The synthesized ZnO-NRs demonstrate a potential promising as photoanode electrode in electrochemical system for hydrogen production.