Alkylamine-mediated synthesis and photocatalytic properties of ZnO

Abstract

A simple approach to synthesize ZnO microstructures was reported using dodecylamine, hexadecylamine and oleylamine as template agents. The synthesized ZnO was characterized by XRD, FESEM, TEM, EDS mapping, FTIR, UV–vis DRS, Raman spectroscopy and BET analysis. Hierarchical oriented ZnO microstructures were obtained. The photocatalytic performance of ZnO prepared with different types of alkylamines was evaluated by the degradation of methylene blue (MB) and methyl orange (MO). The results suggested that alkylamine control the nucleation, growth and morphology of ZnO. The photocatalytic properties of ZnO on the degradation of MB and MO decreased with increasing the alkyl chain length in alkylamine.

Keywords

ZnO / controlled preparation / alkylamine / photocatalytic property

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Disclosure of potential conflicts of interests

The authors declare that they have no conflict of interest.

Acknowledgements

This work was supported by the Fundamental Research Funds for the Central Universities (Grant No. 2232013A3-05) and the National Science and Technology Ministry (ID 2012BAK30B03).

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