Preparation and Photocatalytic Degradation of ZnO Graphene Composites

Abstract

Abstract A series of ZnO graphene composites with different reduced graphene oxide (RGO) contents (0%, 2%, 4%, 6% and 8% (mass fraction)) were prepared by solvothermal method. The composite samples were characterized by XRD, SEM and pl. The results show that all the composite samples doped with RGO do not change the structure of ZnO; Pure ZnO samples are spherical particles with grain size of about 40 nm. After adding RGO, the grain size of the samples is uneven, and the agglomeration of the composite samples increases gradually with the increase of RGO content; The emission peaks of all composites are near 373 nm. With the increase of RGO content, the intensity of the intrinsic emission peak of the composites decreases first and then increases. The introduction of RGO makes the absorption peak has a slight red shift, which improve the visible-light absorption ability of the composites. With the increase of RGO content, the photocatalytic performance of the composites increased first and then decreased. When the RGO content was 6% (mass fraction), the photocatalytic performance of the composites was the best, and the degradation rate and reaction rate constants reached 71.97% and 0.017 min-1 respectively.