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Vanadium-doped ZnO nanorods: magnetic and enhanced H2 properties

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Abstract

The production of one-dimensional nanorods (NRs) has been capturing decent curiosity due to the peculiar electronic, spintronic, and hydrogen evolution properties. Consequently, herein, diluted magnetic semiconducting ZnO:V (0, 1, and 2 at%) NRs have been prepared through a typical hydrothermal method. SEM images depicted that the prepared samples belonged to nanorods. V ion incorporation into the ZnO matrix was confirmed through XRD, Raman, and XPS studies. A trivial decreasing of optical band gap with the V doping was determined via Kubelka–Munk plots. The doping enhances the paramagnetic nature of ZnO as function of V doping. Importantly, these NRs were measured for H2 production through H2O splitting by the solar simulator. The ZnO:V (2 at%) portrayed the best H2 production capability (25,188 µmol h−1 g−1) in 5 h than other samples. The plausible reasons behind the improved H2 evolution could be discussed in detail. Till date, this is the first ever report on H2 evolution of ZnO:V nanorods.

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Data Availability Statement

Data will be made available on request.

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Acknowledgements

This work was supported by the National Research Foundation Korea funded by the Ministry of Science, ICT and Fusion Research (Grant No: 20201G1A1014959). This work was supported by the Technology development Program (S3038568) funded by the Ministry of SMEs and Startups (MSS, Korea). The study was supported by the National Research Foundation of Korea (NRF) funded by the Ministry of Science (Grant Nos. 2022R1I1A1A01064248, 2021R1A4A2001658, and 2022R1A2C1003853). The NRF grants were funded by the Korean government (Grant Nos. 2020R1A2C1012439 and 2020R1A4A1019227).

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Author notes

  1. B. Poornaprakash and Peddathimula Puneetha have contributed equally to this work.

Authors and Affiliations

  1. Department of Electronic Engineering, Gangneung-Wonju National Univeristy, Gangneung, 25457, Republic of Korea

    Poornaprakash Bathalavaram, Singiri Ramu, Jooyoung Jeon, Min-Woo Kwon & Young Lae Kim

  2. Department of Robotics and Intelligent Machine Engineering, College of Mechanical and IT Engineering, Yeungnam University, Gyeongsan, 38541, Korea

    Peddathimula Puneetha & Dong-Yeon Lee

  3. School of Materials Science and Engineering, Kyungpook National University, Daegu, 41566, Republic of Korea

    Siva Pratap Reddy Mallem & Kwi-Il Park

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  1. Poornaprakash Bathalavaram
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  2. Peddathimula Puneetha
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Correspondence to Young Lae Kim or Kwi-Il Park.

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Bathalavaram, P., Puneetha, P., Ramu, S. et al. Vanadium-doped ZnO nanorods: magnetic and enhanced H2 properties. Appl. Phys. A 128, 1084 (2022). https://doi.org/10.1007/s00339-022-06219-z

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