Improved photodegradation performance of zinc oxide/carbon nanotubes/reduced graphene oxide composites

Abstract

In this study, zinc oxide/carbon nanotubes/reduced graphene oxide (ZnO/CNTs/rGO) composites were synthesized using a simple and facile magnetic stirring method at room temperature. The photocatalytic activity of the composites under UV-vis light irradiation was studied using Rhodamine B (RhB) as the model compound. RhB solution was almost completely degraded in 30 min for ternary composite, and a ca. 200% improvement in the degradation efficiency by ZnO/CNTs/rGO was found when the rate constant k of the pseudo-first-order reaction was compared with that using ZnO only. This finding demonstrated the positive effects of CNTs and rGO on reducing electron-hole pair recombination and extending the light adsorption range. We furthermore determined the optimum stoichiometric amount of each component. Overall, this work provided a method of enhancing photocatalytic performance by combining the ZnO and CNTs/rGO.