Pressure-induced and flaring photocatalytic diversity of ZnO particles hallmarked by finely tuned pathways

Abstract

Microstructure and morphology of particles play key roles in optimizing the properties of shape-selected ZnO particles, which are essential factors for flexible and reliable applications. In particular, chemical understanding and physical measurement with scientific theory must be further integrated for the realization of finely tuned ZnO nano/microstructures with desired sizes and shapes. Herein, we deliver a detailed description of the mechanism that mimics the formation of finely-tuned, spherical ZnO nanoparticles (NPs) at the computational level. We tackled issues that significantly affect the favorable structural motifs of the spherical ZnO NPs grown hydrothermally from ethanolic solution leading to their advancing chemical and physical properties. The excellent photocatalytic activity of the spherical ZnO was addressed by an apparent-rate constant of 9.7(2)x10-2 min-1 efficiently degrading the Rhodamine B solution by ∼99% in 50 min. The apparent-rate constant for tubular ZnO particles is almost six times lower than that of spherical ZnO NPs. Comparative results revealed that the diversity of size and shape of ZnO particles distinguishes the wurtzite-to-rocksalt transformation reversibility phenomena by dictating the microstructure-dependent deformation behavior and ultimately leading to different transition-induced elastic strain responses to hydrostatic pressure up to 30 GPa.