Nanofiber Template-Induced Preparation of ZnO Nanocrystal and its Application in Photocatalysis

Traditional preparation of ZnO nanocrystal requires heating zinc acetate to a temperature over 350°C, whereas in this work, zinc acetate was first electrospun with PVDF to form a nanofiber, followed by thermal treatment at only 140°C to give nanocrystalline ZnO. The much lower temperature required in thermal treatment is attributed to the high reactivity of zinc acetate at nano dimension. The as-prepared ZnO-doped PVDF nanofiber mat shows excellent effect in the photocatalytic degradation of Rhodamine B, comparable to ZnO particle thermally treated at 600°C. Highly-oriented ZnO nanorods were obtained by further hydrothermal synthesis of the electrospun nanofiber mat, giving nanostructured ZnO of different morphologies well-aligned on the surface of organic nanofiber. Notably, the hydrothermal synthesis of the successful preparation of these nanostructured ZnO requires a processing temperature below 100°C at atmospheric pressure, showing great potential to be scaled up for vast manufacturing.