Pulsed laser ablation in liquid synthesis of ZnO/TiO2 nanocomposite catalyst with enhanced photovoltaic and photocatalytic performance

In this work, we employed an impurity-free nanoparticle synthesis technique, known as pulsed laser ablation in liquid (PLAL), to integrate titanium dioxide nanoparticles (TiO2 NPs) into zinc oxide nanorods (ZnO NRs) with varying relative proportions. The main objective of this integration was to enhance the charge carrier separation of photo-generated electron hole pairs during solar irradiation. For the synthesis process, an Nd:YAG laser at 532 nm wavelength was applied as an ablation source, along with deionized water as a solvent medium in which the precursor materials were dispersed prior to laser irradiation. The nanocomposites were characterized by X-ray diffraction (XRD), UV–vis absorption and in-situ Raman spectroscopy, X-ray photoelectron spectroscopy (XPS), transmission electron microscopy (TEM), high resolution transmission electron microscopy (HR-TEM) and field emission scanning electron microscopy (FE-SEM). The synthesized nanocomposites were primarily utilised in two applications: firstly, as a catalyst in the degradation of methyl orange (MO) and secondly, as photo-anode in dye sensitized solar cell (DSSC). Our research has demonstrated that optimal performance was obtained for the nanocomposite containing 10% and 90% (by weight) TiO2 NPs and ZnO respectively, which we define as the ideal nanocomposite. Relative to pure ZnO, the photo-conversion efficiency of the ideal composite was improved substantially by 63.73%, whilst the photo-degradation rate was enhanced by 3 fold. The oxidation state and the microstructural of the segregated ideal nanocomposite confirms that oxygen vacancy defects were created when perfect surface integration occurs between TiO2 and ZnO. Nonetheless, we believe that the performance enhancement is predominantly due to the excellent charge carrier separation and fast interfacial electron flow in this nanocomposite.