Uncovering the role of surface-attached Ag nanoparticles in photodegradation improvement of Rhodamine B by ZnO-Ag nanorods Timur Atabaev 1 , Timur Sh. Atabaev 2 1 Nazarbayev University, Kazakhstan, 2 Pusan National University, South Korea ZnO nanorods decorated with metal nanoparticles have sparked considerable interest in recent years thanks to their suitability for a wide range of applications, such as photocatalysis, photovoltaics, antibacterial activity, and sensing devices. In this study, we prepared and investigated the improved solar-light-assisted photocatalytic activity of ZnO nanorods (NRs) decorated with Ag nanoparticles (NPs) using a conventional Rhodamine B (RB) dye as a model water pollutant. We showed that the presence of Ag NPs on the surface of ZnO NRs significantly increases the degradation rate of RB dye (~0.2432 min −1 ) when compared to bare ZnO NRs (~0.0431 min −1 ). The improved photocatalytic activity of ZnO-Ag was further experimentally tested using radical scavengers. The obtained results reveal that ˙ OH and ˙ O 2 − radicals are the main active species involved in the RB dye photodegradation by ZnO-Ag NRs. It was concluded that efficient charge separation plays a major role in photocatalytic activity improvement. References 1. S. Em et al./ Nanomaterials 2022, 12, 2882.
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