Mineralization of rhodamine 6G dye over rose flower-like ZnO nanomaterials

• Unique rose flower-like ZnO nanomaterials (R-ZnO) are synthesized by chemical route.
• Well-crystalline sheet petals are arranged to form rose flower morphology.
• R-ZnO are applied as photocatalyst for the photodegradation of rhodamine 6G (Rh6G) dye.
• R-ZnO shows enormously high degradation of Rh6G-dye by ~96% within 60 min.

The rose flower-like ZnO nanomaterials (R-ZnO) were synthesized by the chemical route for the photocatalytic degradation of rhodamine 6G (Rh6G) dye. Each R-ZnO was composed of several sheet like petals of average thickness of ~100–150 nm. The synthesized R-ZnO photocatalyst showed enormously high degradation rate of ~96% within 60 min towards Rh6G-dye under UV light illumination. The fast photodegradation might attribute to the rapid generation of oxyradical through ē–h+ separation pairs between the conduction (CB) and valence band (VB) of ZnO. The mass spectroscopy was carried out to investigate the mineralized intermediates after the photocatalytic degradation of Rh6G-dye.