Low-temperature synthesis and sunlight-catalytic performance of flower-like hierarchical graphene oxide/ZnO macrosphere

摘要

A flower-like hierarchical graphene oxide/ZnO (GO/ZnO) macrospheres were fabricated via a low-temperature hydrothemal method, and their photocatalytic performance was tested under natural sunlight and darkness. The resultant GO/ZnO sample displays unique hierarchical macrosphere with diameters in the range of 2-3m. The photocatalytic activity of the GO/ZnO microspheres depended on GO, and GO/ZnO macrosphere containing 0.37% GO exhibited very high photocatalytic activity under natural sunlight irradiation and without stirring. Furthermore, GO/ZnO macrospheres possessed good photocatalytic activity under darkness, in which its removal rate of RhB is approximately 5.5 times as many as pure ZnO macrospheres. The enhancement in photocatalytic activity originates from the superior electrical properties of GO, facilitating to transfer the photogenerated electrons and decrease the recombination of photogenerated charge carriers.