Abstract
Here we present a simple hydrothermal route for the preparation of photoactive ZnO and Ag/ZnO nanoparticles (NPs) synthesized in the presence and absence of polyvinylpyrrolidone (PVP). The low temperature synthesis is carried out in ethylene glycol (EG) medium at 180 degrees C, where EG is used as a reducing agent for the Ag+ ions. PVP is exploited as a size confining matrix for the Ag NPs. The present synthetic protocol allows the preparation of ZnO nanorods (NRs) with typical lengths of -200 nm and Ag/ZnO NPs with typical sizes of -100 nm. The photocatalytic activity of the as-prepared nanomaterials was tested for degradation of model pollutant methyl orange (MO) dye and terephthalic acid (TPA). We found that the Ag/ZnO NPs synthesized in PVP showed higher photoactivity than the commercial TiO2 (P25) powder or ZnO and Ag/ZnO NPs synthesized without PVP.
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