Enhanced photoelectrochemical and photocatalytic properties of 3D-hierarchical ZnO nanostructures

Abstract

In the present study, highly efficient and stable photocatalysts have been developed in order to achieve both organic material degradation and sunlight-driven hydrogen generation. More specifically, we investigated the influence of the surface wettability and types of the precursor anionic species on the morphology of the three-dimensional (3D) hierarchical zinc oxide (ZnO) nanostructures. It has been observed that nitrate and acetate based anionic sources resulted with the hand fan like and nanosheet morphologies, respectively. Adhesion of the ZnO nanostructures on the FTO coated glass has been improved via potassium hydroxide treatment, which also affected the morphology of the ZnO films. Well-adhered photoelectrodes for solar water splitting on FTO coated glass substrates with high applied photon-to-current efficiency have been prepared via simple and cost effective chemical bath deposition method. Finally, ZnO nanopowders with two different morphologies have been synthesized via also chemical bath deposition. These nanopowders were used to photocatalytic degradation of methyl orange dye and very high degree of degradation (95%) was achieved using ZnO-Acetate nanopowders, which had morphology of microspheres with nanosheets. © 2017 Elsevier B.V.