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Room-temperature deposition of ZnO-graphene nanocomposite hybrid photocatalysts for improved visible-light-driven degradation of methylene blue

Research Authors
A.G.Abd-Elrahim and Doo-ManChun
Research Abstract

ZnO-graphene nanocomposites (NCs) of ZnO and graphite microparticles were directly deposited by a one-step kinetic spray process at room temperature on a nickel foam (NF) porous substrate. The ZnO-graphene NCs/NF with various graphite contents (25, 50, and 75 wt.%) were utilized as hybrid photocatalysts for methylene blue (MB) degradation. Analysis of Raman spectra revealed the improvement of various disorder-related phonons, confirming the fragmentation of microparticles into the nano-size range in all the ZnO-graphene NCs/NF hybrid photocatalysts. Also, the degree of layer separation and fragmentation of micro-sized graphite in the ZnO-graphene NCs/NF was shown to be strongly dependent on the graphite content. The surface morphology of the nanostructured ZnO/NF thin films consisted of nanorods and nanosheets. The increase of graphite content in the ZnO-graphene NCs/NF hybrid photocatalysts was accompanied by a two-step morphology transformation into graphene nanoflakes and nanoflowers. The interfacial bonding states of the ZnO-graphene NCs/NF were investigated using X-ray photoelectron spectroscopy, which indicated synergy improvement by the evolution of multiple bonded states between the ZnO and graphene species in all the hybrid photocatalysts. UV-visible optical absorbance spectra revealed a decrease in the optical bandgap of the ZnO-graphene NCs/NF with graphene species incorporation, indicating the improvement of visible light harvesting. The NCs hybrid photocatalyst with 50 wt.% graphite content exhibited the lowest bandgap of 2.9 eV compared with the nanostructured ZnO/NF with 3.18 eV. The photocatalytic activity of ZnO-graphene NCs/NF was evaluated using the degradation of MB under visible light irradiation. The NCs hybrid photocatalysts with 50 wt.% graphite content exhibited the highest degradation efficiency and the highest reaction kinetics rate constant compared with the other nanostructured photocatalysts.

Research Department
Research Journal
Ceramics International
Research Publisher
Elsevier
Research Rank
1
Research Vol
Volume 47, Issue 9, 1 May 2021
Research Website
https://doi.org/10.1016/j.ceramint.2021.01.142
Research Year
2021
Research Pages
12812-12825