Abstract
Ultralong, highly branched Sn-doped zinc oxide (ZnO) nanostructures were fabricated using a simple substrate-free chemical vapor deposition (CVD) method. The nanostructures exhibited efficient photocatalytic activities in degradation of methylene blue (MB) under natural sunlight. 100% of MB with the concentration of 10 mg/L could be completely removed within 36 minutes. Possible reasons for the enhanced photocatalytic effect were analyzed.
Highlights
Energy and environment issues are two severe problems we face today
No peaks related with SnO2 were detected, demonstrating that the Sn atoms were completely dissolved in the zinc oxide (ZnO) lattices
The results demonstrated that the photocatalysts are very efficient. 100% methylene blue (MB) was discomposed in 36 minutes
Summary
Energy and environment issues are two severe problems we face today. Utilizing solar energy is considered as one of the major strategies to solve the energy and environmental problems. Great efforts have been made to overcome these two issues Cocatalysts such as noble metals [1, 2], grapheme [3], and semiconducting quantum dots [4] have been proved to be effective in reducing the probability of carrier recombination. In order to expand the band of solar energy adsorption, we can either tune the bandgaps of semiconducting photocatalysts or use composite photocatalytic materials [5, 6]. On the other hand, doping ZnO with other elements such as Sn, Al, and Ti has been proved to be effective in adjusting the bandgap, resulting in enhanced light adsorption in the visible wavelength range [10,11,12]. The superior photocatalytic behaviors can be attributed to the combined effects of large S/V, abundant surface defects, and enhanced visible light adsorption. Photoluminescence (PL), Raman, and X-ray diffraction (XRD) were carried out to examine the defects and crystal structures
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