Non-hydrolytic synthesis and photo-catalytic studies of ZnO nanoparticles

ZnO nanoparticles (ZnO-NPs) were successfully fabricated by soft chemical technique from zinc acetate di-hydrate (Zn(CH3COO)(2)center dot 2H(2)O) and octadecylamine (CH3 (CH2)(17)NH2). The crystallinity of the grown product was analyzed by the XRD technique revealing the as-prepared nanoparticles (NPs) have hexagonal wurzite structure. Their morphology was investigated by FE-SEM and TEM, which showed that well dispersed spherical particles of 10 +/- 4 nm in diameter had been formed. The optical property of ZnO-NPs was confirmed by the photoluminescence spectroscopy showing an intense room temperature photoluminescence in the violet region of 382 nm. Furthermore, the synthesized ZnO-NPs showed a better photo-catalytic activity than that of commercial Degussa P-25 powder during photochemical degradation of methyl orange (MO) dye. Also, the Zn-2p1/2, Zn-2p3/2, and O-1s peaks in XPS clearly suggest that the grown nanoparticles are ZnO. Additionally, liquid chromatography mass spectroscopy (LC-MS) was applied to observe the degradated compounds from photo-catalytic degradation of methyl orange (MO) dye in presence of ZnO-NPs. (C) 2011 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.