Facile synthesis of ZnO/rGO hybrid by microwave irradiation method with improved photoactivity

In this study we report a facile synthesis of zinc oxide (ZnO) on reduced graphene oxide (rGO) by microwave irradiation technique. ZnO/rGO hybrids (ZG) are successfully synthesized via reduction of graphene oxide and using commercial ZnO nanoparticles in a mixture of water/ethanol. A series of hybrids with varying amount of rGO was prepared to study photocatalytic activity. The synthesized ZG hybrids show higher photocatalytic performance compared to ZnO, in degradation of methylene blue (MB). By increasing the amount of rGO, photocatalytic activity is enhanced. The degradation rate of MB for pure ZnO is 86% and reaches the maximum value of 100% for ZG with 30 wt% mass ratio relative to ZnO, after 60 min UV irradiation. SEM, EDS, XRD, FTIR and UV-vis analysis are employed to determine the properties of the samples.