Effect of metal-support couplings on the photocatalytic performance of Au-decorated ZnO nanorods

We reported the effectiveness of photocatalysts based on ZnO nanorods in the pollutant degradation. UV–Vis adsorption and photoluminescence (PL) were used to verify the incorporation of the plasmonic Au NPs on the ZnO nanorods. The strong electronic interaction between Au NPs and the defect sites of ZnO can be caused by the resonant coupling near the surface of ZnO, which in turn suppresses the defect-related emission band. We significantly enhanced photocatalytic performance by the coupling ZnO nanorods to the plasmonic gold nanoparticles. Due to the surface plasmon resonance and the localized Au–ZnO Schottky barrier, the Au–ZnO nanorods demonstrated better photocatalytic efficiency (96% in 60 min) than pure ZnO nanorods (only 42% in 60 min) under visible light irradiation of the halogen lamp. The correlation between metal-support couplings and photocatalytic performance is discussed.