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Insights into the structural, morphological, and electronic characteristics of ZnO nanoflowers: implications for efficient photocatalytic degradation of crystal violet dye

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Abstract

The present study depicts, synthesis and physicochemical investigations of zinc oxide nanoflowers (ZnO NFs). X-ray diffraction (XRD) profile of ZnO NFs revealed that ZnO NFs exhibit hexagonal wurtzite-type structure of crystallinity with P63mc space group. Microstructural analysis displays a uniform flower-like shape of ZnO NFs with petals ranging from 1 to 2 μm and an overall size of 12 µm. The absorption spectrum of ZnO NFs showed characteristic peak at 365.7 nm with an optical energy band gap of 3.40 eV. The photocatalytic activity of the ZnO NFs was evaluated by exposing crystal violet (CV) dye to UV light in the presence of the ZnO NFs. The UV–Vis spectra showed a significant decrease in the intensity of the absorbance peak at ~ 590 nm, corresponding to the degradation of the dye. The degradation followed a first-order rate equation with a rate constant of 0.0404 min−1 and excellent fit to the experimental data (R2 = 0.987). Furthermore, the ZnO NFs displayed excellent reusability, with more than 90% removal efficiency after 5 cycles. These findings demonstrate the potential of ZnO NFs as an effective photocatalyst for removing toxicity from aqueous solutions. Hall effect measurements revealed the n-type character of ZnO NFs and their resistivity, carrier concentration and Hall mobility were found to be 29 Ω cm, 7.53 × 106 cm−3, and 2.48 cm2/V s, respectively.

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The datasets generated during the current study will be available from the corresponding author on reasonable request.

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Acknowledgements

The authors are thankful to the Director, Sophisticated Analytical Instrumentation Facility (SAIF), Panjab University, Chandigarh, India, for providing characterization facilities. The authors extend their appreciation to Researchers Supporting Project number (RSP2023R165), King Saud University, Riyadh, Saudi Arabia.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Department of Physics, Chandigarh University, Gharuan, Mohali, 140413, India

    Nupur Aggarwal, Naveen Kumar, Anjana Sharma, Anu Kapoor & Harpreet Kaur

  2. Department of Civil Engineering, Gharuan, Mohali, 140413, India

    Ramgopal Ramisetty & Nitish Kumar Sharma

  3. Department of Zoology, College of Science, King Saud University, PO Box 2455, 11451, Riyadh, Saudi Arabia

    Daoud Ali

  4. Clinical Division of Fish Medicine, University of Veterinary Medicine, 1210, Vienna, Austria

    Gokhlesh Kumar

  5. Department of Electronics and Communication Engineering, Gharuan, Mohali, 140413, India

    Payal Patial

  6. Department of Chemistry, Government Mohindra College, Patiala, Punjab, 147001, India

    Kanchan Bala

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  1. Nupur Aggarwal
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Contributions

NA Experimental. AS Conceptualization. GK Draft preparation. NK Overall Supervision. PP Analysis. KB Proof reading. AK Methodology. DA Data Curating. RR Interpretation of data. HK Reviewing and editing.

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Correspondence to Naveen Kumar.

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Aggarwal, N., Ramisetty, R., Kumar, N. et al. Insights into the structural, morphological, and electronic characteristics of ZnO nanoflowers: implications for efficient photocatalytic degradation of crystal violet dye. Opt Quant Electron 55, 1007 (2023). https://doi.org/10.1007/s11082-023-05324-4

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