Self-assembled silver-decorated titania and zinc oxide nanowires for photocatalytic dye degradation
Year: 2025
Type: article
Abstract: Fast fashion and expansion into new markets, mainly in Asia, have drastically increased the demand for dyes. A significant proportion of toxic dyes enter the environment unfiltered, causing severe damage, such as disrupting photosynthesis and respiration in aquatic organisms even at low concentrations of 1 mg/l. Reducing the concentration or entirely removing those dyes is therefore essential to protect aquatic life and ensure clean drinking water. Here, we present a novel approach for fabricating photocatalytic ZnO and TiO2 nanostructures with high photocatalytic activity on a large scale using metastable atomic layer deposition (MS‑ALD). Dose times and number of cycles were optimized to achieve structures with superior optical performance. Mean absorption rates of 79% and 68% were achieved over a broad spectral range (200 nm-2500 nm) for TiO2 and ZnO nanostructures, respectively. Optimized structures were used to test the degradation of the model analyte Acid Orange 7 (AO7) under UV light. ZnO structures demonstrated high activity, significantly reducing AO7 concentration, whereas TiO2 structures showed no photocatalytic activity. The inactivity of TiO2 we attribute to the absence of a crystalline phase.
Source: Applied Catalysis O Open
Language: English
Field: Energy
Domain: Physical Sciences
Open Access status: gold
Estimated APC paid: $2,140
OpenAlex ID: W4409538867