Structure, morphology and photocatalytic activity of ZnO nanorods fabricated by electrochemical deposition

Abstract

We report the investigation of structure, morphology, photocatalytic degradation of methyl blue using ZnO nanorods (NRs). The ZnO NRs samples were fabricated using electrochemical deposition from aqueous solution of zinc nitrate and hexamethylenetetramine on ITO substrates. The effect of the growth time on the structure, morphology and photocatalytic properties of ZnO NRs was investigated in details.XRD analysis showed that the fabricated NRs have hexagonal wurtzite structure and growth direction along the (002) plane. The morphology of the prepared samples investigated by SEM showed that growth rate of the NRs depends on the time of the growth. The surface area and cross-sectional area of the fabricated ZnO NRs increased with increasing the growth time and led to improvements in the NRs aspect ratios. It was also found that the photocatalytic activity of the grown nanorods enhances by increasing the deposition time. The present results are discussed in terms of the observed structural morphology of the investigated ZnO NRs and correlated with the photocatalytic performance of the grown NRs.