GeO2 – ZnO Nanocomposite Rosettes for Enhancement of Performance in Energy Technologies: Coupling Organic Templated Synthesis with Microwave Treatment

Current study introduces first report on the sustainable synthesis of GeO2 - ZnO nano-hetero-system copulated with the microwave treatment. GeO2 - ZnO has been effectively tuned for the band gap causing an alleviation from 4.89 to 2.89 eV upon the nanocomposite formation. With the hexagonal phase, GeO2 - ZnO possessed an average crystallite size of the 62.11 nm. These particles existed as nano-rossettes with the uniform upward projection. The catalytic performance of the synthesized material was more inclined towards pure hydrogen generation with the lower overpotential (eta HER) and Tafel slopes i.e. 128 mV and 121.9 mV dec- 1. GeO2 - ZnO nano-rossettes bedecked electrode remained unscathed for a prolonged duration of the 1500 min and demonstrated commendable charge storage with the unit capacity of 384 mAH g- 1. As a passivation layer in perovskite solar cells, these nanomaterials improved efficiency up to 15 % by prevention of the charge aggregation.