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Study of synergistic effect of cellulose on the enhancement of photocatalytic activity of ZnO

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Abstract

Semiconductor photocatalysts play a major role in photocatalytic process. Zinc oxide (ZnO) is supposed to be a preferred photocatalyst due to its high photosensitivity, mechanical–thermal stability, tunable morphology and non-toxicity. To enhance the photocatalytic activity of ZnO, cellulose/ZnO composite films (CZ films) with snowflake-like ZnO micro/nanoparticles immobilized in cellulose matrix were prepared by a simple dissolution and regeneration of cellulose and subsequently one-step hydrothermal synthesis of ZnO. The immobilization of ZnO was conducive to overcoming the shortcomings of aggregation easily and reclamation difficulty of scattered nanopowders. The obtained CZ films exhibited excellent photocatalytic efficiency (85.3%) to degrade methylene blue with minor amount of ZnO photocatalyst (<6 mg). The experimental results show that a photocatalytic process involving absorption–degradation–desorption was proposed. Notably, the synergistic effects between cellulose film and the supported ZnO via absorption and desorption processes were important to enhance the photocatalytic efficiency. This work provided an effective method to support ZnO photocatalyst and improve the photocatalytic efficiency via a functional substrate.

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Acknowledgements

Projects 51475450 and 51335010 were supported by the National Nature Science Foundation of China. This material is also based upon work funded by Ningbo Municipal Nature Science Foundation (No. 2016A610263), the National Basic Research Program of China (No. 2014CB643302), Zhejiang Provincial Innovation Team (Grant No. 2011R50006) and Ningbo Municipal Innovation Team (Grant No. 2011B81001).

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Author notes

  1. Mengya Xu and He Wang have contributed equally.

Authors and Affiliations

  1. Key Laboratory of Marine Materials and Related Technologies, Zhejiang Key Laboratory of Marine Materials and Protective Technologies, Ningbo Institute of Materials Technology and Engineering, Chinese Academy of Sciences, Ningbo, 315201, People’s Republic of China

    Mengya Xu, He Wang, Gang Wang, Lin Zhang, Gang Liu, Zhixiang Zeng, Wenjie Zhao, Xuedong Wu & Qunji Xue

  2. School of Materials Science and Engineering, Shanghai University, Shanghai, 200072, People’s Republic of China

    He Wang

  3. Laboratory of Green Organic and Oil Chemistry, School of Chemistry and Chemical Engineering, Shanghai Jiao Tong University, Shanghai, 200240, People’s Republic of China

    Gang Wang & Tianhui Ren

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  1. Mengya Xu
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  2. He Wang
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  3. Gang Wang
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  4. Lin Zhang
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Correspondence to Gang Wang or Zhixiang Zeng.

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Xu, M., Wang, H., Wang, G. et al. Study of synergistic effect of cellulose on the enhancement of photocatalytic activity of ZnO. J Mater Sci 52, 8472–8484 (2017). https://doi.org/10.1007/s10853-017-1106-6

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