Facile synthesis of meso-porous ZnO nano-triangular prisms with enhanced photocatalytic activity

Abstract

We report a simple route for the synthesis of ZnO nano-triangular prisms (ZnO-nt) with excellent photocatalytic activity. The activity of ZnO-nt was superior for the degradation of rhodamine-B (Rh-B) dye, when compared to ZnO-nanorods (ZnO-nr) and ZnO nano-particles (ZnO-np). The enhancement in photocatalytic activity of ZnO-nt is attributed to its special morphology, good surface area, high number of oxygen vacancies and suppression of electron–hole recombination. The results testify that ZnO-nt could act as a promising photocatalyst for the remediation of dye contaminated water under solar light irradiation.