1. Hydrothermally grown ZnO nanoflowers for environmental remediation and clean energy applications
- Author
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Umar, Ahmad, Akhtar, M.S., Al-Hajry, A., Al-Assiri, M.S., and Almehbad, Noura Y.
- Subjects
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CRYSTAL growth , *ZINC oxide , *NANOSTRUCTURED materials synthesis , *ENVIRONMENTAL remediation , *LOW temperatures , *PHOTOCATALYSIS , *DYE-sensitized solar cells , *PHOTODEGRADATION - Abstract
Abstract: Well-crystalline flower-shaped ZnO nanostructures were synthesized by simple hydrothermal process at low-temperature of 145°C and utilized as a photocatalyst and photo-anode material for photocatalytic degradation and dye-sensitized solar cell applications, respectively. The detailed morphological and the structural characterizations revealed that the synthesized products were flower-shaped, grown in very high-density, and possessed well-crystalline wurtzite hexagonal phase. The chemical composition confirmed the pure phase and good optical properties of as-synthesized ZnO flowers. The as-synthesized ZnO flowers were used as an efficient photocatalyst for the photocatalytic degradation of Rhodamine B which exhibit ∼84% degradation within 140min. Moreover, the as-synthesized ZnO flowers were utilized as photo-anode material for the fabrication of dye-sensitized solar cells (DSSCs) which exhibited overall light-to-electricity conversion efficiency of ∼1.38%, open-circuit current (V OC) of 0.621V, short-circuit current (J SC) of ∼3.52mA/cm2 and fill factor (FF) of 0.64. [Copyright &y& Elsevier]
- Published
- 2012
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