Synthesis of Various Zinc Oxide Nanostructures by Hydrothermal Method Using Molybdophosphoric Acid and Their Photocatalytic Application for Degradation of Congo Red

Different nanostructures of zinc oxide were synthesized hydrothermally by reacting zinc acetate in the presence of Molybdophosphoric acid (H3[PMo12O40]) at different conditions (times, temperatures and concentration of H3[PMo12O40]). X-ray diffraction (XRD), Transmission electron microscopy (TEM) and Fourier transform infrared (FT-IR) were used for characterization of the synthesized nanostructures. The results of XRD showed the Zincite hexagonal phase of produced Zinc Oxides structures. Also, by changing the experimental conditions various ZnO nanostructures such as Nanoparticles, Microrods and Nano-sheets have been produced. The prepared ZnO Nano-sheets demonstrated high performance for photocatalytic degradation of Congo red. Almost 70% of decolorization was occurred within only 15 min and semi first order reaction constant was evaluated as 0.0778 min-1.

Keywords:

ZnO , Hydrothermal , Molybdophosphoric Acid , Nanosheet , Photodegradation