from the conferences organized by TANGER Ltd.
Electrical and optical properties of zinc oxide, in particular the relatively wide direct band gap of ~3.3 eV predetermines ZnO as a photocatalytic material at room temperature. ZnO itself is non-toxic and the hydrothermal growth method we use to prepare its nanostructures is environmentally friendly. These facts contribute to the attractiveness of this material. Recently, we have focused on studying the influence of doping or of plasma surface treatment on the photocatalytic efficiency of ZnO. However, the main drawbacks are the high recombination rate of charge carriers and the poor in capturing visible light in a narrow spectral range. The solution is the use of ZnO as part of nanocomposites. In the past, ZnO-detonation nanodiamons (DND) composites were studied. The disadvantage of DND is the formation of clusters of different sizes, therefore we focused our attention on the use of HPHT nanodiamonds (NDs). We modified the surface of commercial HPHT NDs by oxidation in order to increase the concentration of hydroxyl-, carbonyl- and carboxyl- functional groups. The resulting ZnO-HPHT NDs composites were synthesized using a dehydration-condensation process between oxygen-containing functional groups on the NDs surface and hydroxyl groups on the ZnO surface. The prepared nanocomposites were characterized by SEM, EDX spectroscopy and secondary ion mass spectrometry (SIMS) and tested by photocatalytic dye degradation.
Keywords: HPHT NDs, ZnO, nanocomposites, photocatalyst, photocatalytic oxidation© This is an open access article distributed under the Creative Commons Attribution License which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited.