The Fabrication of ZnO Microrods on Monolayer Graphene and Their Photocatalytic Application.

Jincheng Fan,Berislav Markovič,Heng Heng,Tengfei Li,Igor Markovič

doi:10.17344/acsi.2015.1670

Jincheng Fan, Berislav Markovič + Show 3 more

Open Access

https://doi.org/10.17344/acsi.2015.1670

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Abstract

Zinc oxide (ZnO) microrods were fabricated on graphene/SiO(2)/Si substrate by a simple hydrothermal route. The obtained products were characterized using X-ray powder diffraction, scanning electron microscopy, energy dispersive X-ray spectrometry, photoluminescence and UV-visible spectrometry. Microrods exhibits hexagonal wurzite structure. Some ZnO clusters and twinned ZnO structures were found spread on the microrod array layer. The formation mechanism of ZnO microrods is discussed, emphasizing the formation mechanism of isolated clusters and twinned ZnO structures. Furthermore, microrods demonstrated a good photocatalytic performance towards rhodamine B degradation as ascribed to oxygen vacancies and interstitials considered as the photocatalytical active sites.

Highlights

As a new discovery in materials science, graphene has attracted tremendous attention due to its extraordinary electrical, mechanical, chemical and thermal properties.[1,2,3,4] It is considered to be promising material for future electronic and optoelectronic applications.[5,6,7] multifunctionality of graphene is limited when integrated into devices, because it consists of only elemental carbon
Zinc oxide (ZnO) microrods were grown on the graphene/SiO2/Si by hydrothermal method
The X-ray diffraction (XRD) pattern and energy dispersive x-ray spectrometry (EDS) spectrum demonstrated that these microrods are of pure wurtzite phase

Summary

Introduction

As a new discovery in materials science, graphene has attracted tremendous attention due to its extraordinary electrical, mechanical, chemical and thermal properties.[1,2,3,4] It is considered to be promising material for future electronic and optoelectronic applications.[5,6,7] multifunctionality of graphene is limited when integrated into devices, because it consists of only elemental carbon. To realize the full potential of graphene in advanced electronics and optoelectronics, graphene-based hybrid onedimensional nanostructures have been developed, such as GaN nanowire/graphene, InxGa1–xAs nanowire/graphene, GaAs nanowire/graphene and ZnO nanowire/graphene.[8,9,10,11] Among all graphene based hybrid nanostructures, graphene-ZnO nanostructures have shown superior physical and chemical properties, which can result in their application for semiconductor devices, like solar cells, gas sensors, and transparent electrodes.[12,13,14,15] Zinc oxide nanostructures on graphene can be fabricated either by vapourphase or liquid-phase methods.[16,17,18,19] Generally, for the former method, it is necessary to solve the problems caused by high temperature and a presence of oxygen atoms. Oxygen vacancies and interstitials were considered to be the active sites of the ZnO photocatalyst

Experimental

Results and Discussion

Conclusions