Growth of porous ZnO nanosheets by electrodeposition with the addition of KBr in nitrate electrolyte

Porous ZnO nanosheets show much prospect in many applications. In this letter, highly porous ZnO nanosheets with new and interesting morphology were synthesized by electrodeposition followed by annealing process. The electrodeposition of the nanosheets was conducted by introducing 1 M KBr into 0.1 M Zn(NO3)2 electrolyte. The obtained porous nanosheet is polycrystalline structure composed of ZnO nanoparticles with the grain size about tens of nanometers. The porous ZnO nanosheets were measured to be an n-type semiconductor with a band gap of 3.2 eV. It is expected that the porous ZnO nanosheets could exhibit a good performance in photocatalysis, sensors and photoelectrochemical cells.

► Highly porous ZnO nanosheet was obtained by electrodeposition followed by annealing.
► The electrodeposition was conducted in the Zn(NO3)2 electrolyte containing KBr.
► Porous nanosheet was composed of ZnO nanoparticles with tens of nanometers in size.